Battle of the Ten Kings
A Rigvedic battle on the Parushni, the Ravi, in which the Bharata king Sudas defeated ten allied tribes when they tried to divert the river.
The Rigveda, the oldest hymn collection of India, composed in the land of the seven rivers, tells of a battle fought on the Parushni, the river we call the Ravi. Sudas, king of the Bharatas, guided by the priest Vasishtha, faced a confederation of ten tribes, among them the Purus, the Druhyus, the Anus and the Turvashas, who had been urged on by the rival priest Vishvamitra.
The hymn says the enemies tried to divert the river, and that the waters rose and swept them away, while Sudas's warriors cut down the survivors. Some six thousand were killed, the hymn boasts.
Whether it was a single battle or the memory of many wars, it is the oldest named battle on Punjab soil, and the victory of the Bharatas gave their name, in time, to the whole of India: Bharat.
Same era
Invaders at the gates, 1400 BCE – 1221
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