Battle of the Ten Kings

The Battle of the Ten Kings was first alluded to in the 7th Mandala of the Rigveda (RV) and took place between a king of the Bharatas named King Sudas versus a confederation of tribes. It resulted in a decisive victory for the Bharatas and subsequent formation of the Kuru polity. The Battle of the Ten Kings, mentioned in the Rigveda may have "formed the 'nucleus' of story" of the Kurukshetra War in the Mahabharata.

Quotes

• R.D. Dandekar, who subscribed to the Aryan migration model, proposed a fairly sober reconstruction of the Battle of the Ten Kings, but was more honest in admitting, “I must hasten to add that the Dåsaråjña has nowhere in the Vedic literature been described in a consistent and connected narrative. [...] I have collated the relevant material from the various versions of the Dåsaråjña, have tried to eliminate the inconsistencies and deficiencies in them as far as possible, and have reconstructed a plausible history mainly with the help of constructive imagination.” He was also not sure that the number “ten” should be taken literally; it “has to be understood as being only generally descriptive rather than definitive”.
  • Danino, M. (2019). Demilitarizing the Rigveda: a scrutiny of Vedic horses, chariots and warfare., STUDIES IN HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Journal of the Inter-University Centre for Humanities and Social Sciences VOL. XXVI, NUMBER 1, SUMMER 2019 (Dandekar 1981: 97, 96).

• [It] has long been used as a major source for the reconstruction of `Rgvedic history, perhaps somewhat too credulously, as the description of the battle is anything but clear and is also clearly full of puns, derisive word plays, phonological deformations of the names of opponents, and other poetic tricks, all couched in slangy language.
  • about hymns RV 7.18 - Jamison and Brereton. , quoted from Danino, M. (2019). Demilitarizing the Rigveda: a scrutiny of Vedic horses, chariots and warfare., STUDIES IN HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Journal of the Inter-University Centre for Humanities and Social Sciences VOL. XXVI, NUMBER 1, SUMMER 2019 (Jamison & Brereton 2014: 903).

• Thus, whereas the text passages about the historical Battle of the Ten Kings (incidentally near the Ravi river, right on the present Indo-Pak border) repeatedly have the Vedic king Sudās come from the East and his Iranian-named enemies from the West, the translators insisted on having Sudās come from the West and fight against the Eastern “Aboriginals”.
  • K Elst, in Preface in : Rivers of Rgveda _ A Geographic Exploratio - Jijith Nadumuri Ravi

• ...But in fact, the enemies are led into battle by a king with an Iranian name, Kavaṣa, belonging to the Iranian Kavi dynasty, their tribal names and nicknames all have Iranian counterparts or are known from Iranian and Greek sources to refer to Iranian communities. Moreover, their religion is described as having the typical characteristics of Mazdeism: without Indra, without Devas, without fire-sacrifice etc.. Very obviously, the enemies of the Vedic people at that time, when Rg-Vedic books 7 and 4 and the contemporaneous parts of books 1 and 9 were composed, were Iranian, not “black aboriginal”. This is attested from so many angles that one tends to wonder how this mistake could have been made at all, and how the true Iranian identity of the Dāsas (Greek Dahai) could have been missed.
  • Elst, Koenraad (2018). Still no trace of an Aryan invasion: A collection on Indo-European origins.