Matsya ( sa, मत्स्य) was a Vedic kingdom and later became a part of sixteen

Mahajanapada The Mahājanapadas ( sa, great realm, from ''maha'', "great", and ''janapada'' "foothold of a people") were sixteen kingdoms or oligarchic republics that existed in ancient India from the sixth to fourth centuries BCE during the second urba ...

s, which also appears in Hindu Epic literature. The capital of Matsya was at Viratanagari (present-day

Bairat Viratnagar previously known as Bairat ( IAST: ) or Bairath ( IAST: ) is a town in northern Jaipur district of Rajasthan, India. History Ancient era According to Huen Tsang, visitor to China, Tonk was under Bairath State or Viratnagar p ...

, in

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern si ...

) which is said to have been named after its founder king,

Virata Virata ( sa, विराट, IAST ''virāṭa''), was the king of the Matsya Kingdom, in whose court the Pandavas spent a year in concealment during their exile. Virata was married to Queen Sudeshna and was the father of Prince Uttara and Pr ...

Mention in Mahabharata

Matsya kingdom was founded by king Matsya who was the twin brother of

Satyavati Satyavati ( sa, सत्यवती, ; also spelled Satyawati) was the queen of the Kuru. She is the wife of king Shantanu of Hastinapura, and the great-grandmother of the Pandava and Kaurava princes (The principal characters of the Hindu ...

and who was contemporary to Bhishma. The ''

Mahabharata The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the ''Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the Kuruk ...

'' (V.74.16) refers to a King Sahaja, who ruled over both the Chedis and the Matsyas, which implies that Matsya once formed a part of the Chedi Kingdom.

References

Kingdoms in the Mahabharata {{Hindu-myth-stub