Source: here.
Epic
As per the mahAbharata, the great war on the kuru field came to a conclusion with the smashing of duryodhana’s thighs by bhIma. While balarAma wanted to kill bhIma for unfairly defeating the kuru prince in the gadAyuddha, kR^iShNa convinced him to refrain from doing so. Thereafter, he led the surviving pANDu-s and his relative sAtyaki to rest in the enemy camp. But the remaining survivors on the pANDu side slept in their own camp. Late that night, ashvatthAman, having been inspired by an owl hunting sleeping crows, attacked the pANDava camp aided by his uncle kR^ipa and yadu hero kR^itavarman. There he killed the sleeping pA~nchAla princes shikhaNDin, dR^iShTadyumna, yudhAmanyu and uttamaujas by kicking them or strangling them with bowstrings. Then he killed and beheaded the 5 sons of draupadI: prativindhya, sutasoma, shrutakIrti, shatAnIka and shrutakarman. With that the line of the illustrious pa~nchAla-s, which was praised in the veda, came to an end. The pANDu-s were left with draupadI, who represented the “shrI” of the erstwhile pa~nchAla realm.
Kuru, panchAla, yadu, sAlva, nAga
While much of this is in the realm of history filled into the variegated bottles of Indo-European mythic and epic motifs we can still discern some kind of actual historical events behind these narratives. As we have tentatively argued before there appears to have been an older layer involving a civil war within the kuru-pa~nchAla confederation in core AryAvarta. In this confrontation, the kuru-s might have destroyed the pa~nchAla-s, perhaps via the action of the feral bharadvAja brAhmaNa ashvatthAman.
The larger canvas of these events appears to have included conflicts with another Indo-Aryan state of the salva-s who were initially defeated by the kuru-s and subsequently destroyed by the yadu-s under kR^iShNa devakIputra and his allies.
Another group, the nAga-s, called by some as non-Aryan, were in reality most certainly culturally Arya. This group was also contending for power in this period against the yadu-s led by kR^iShNa. The pANDu-s coming from the Iranian border zone appear to have subsequently emerged as key players. Initially they allied with the yadu-s to gain territory from the nAga-s. This sparked off a long standing feud between the latter and the pANDu-s with some nAga groups allying themselves to the pANDu-s and other fiercely opposing them. Subsequently, the pANDu alliance destroyed the surviving kuru power in alliance with the remnants of the pa~nchAla-s and the yadu-s. Finally they placed themselves as rulers after completing the destruction of the nAga power. Their joint queen draupadI appear to symbolically represent the shrI or the wealth and power of the old pa~nchAla monarchs, which was now in the hands of the pANDu-s though the former had no successors.
As the second wave
In historical terms these pANDu-s might be seen as epic representations of a secondary wave of Aryans invading from the northwest towards the end of the kuru-pa~nchAla or Vedic period. They in alliance with local pre-existing Indo-Aryan groups appear to have established new successor states with the fragmentation of the kuru-pa~nchAla-s in northern India. This secondary wave along with others might be associated with the transformation of Vedic India into the early “classical” India wherein new religious systems, concepts and deities were superimposed upon the earlier shrauta system formalized in the kuru-pa~nchAla realm. It is conceivable that archaeologically they correspond to the famous Painted Grey Ware culture of northern India. Despite their huge cultural effect, their own direct political contribution was limited. There are few India dynasties that consistently claim origin from the pANDu-s. The Greek authors noted that there was a lineage of pANDu-s ruling in the pa~nchanada region in the last centuries of the common era. Indeed, Indic sources mention the yaudheya and arjunAyana republics in the same region which are believed to be founded by successors of the kaunteya-s descending respectively from secondary wives of yudhiShThira and arjuna respectively. These republics played a major role in the nativist movement leading to the defeat of the eastern Iranian Kushanas. The pANDya in south India might also represent such dynastic, if not biological, successor state of the old pANDu-s. But evidence for their true successors is otherwise sparse. Rather, the fragmentation of the unified bhArata realm caused by the actions of the pANDu-s probably resulted in several local Indo-Aryan republics and kingdoms holding sway till the times of udayana and later the revival of magadhan imperialism [consistent with the concluding statements of the bhArata where several city states are established in the aftermath of the pANDu reign].
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