Cedī (
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
: ) was an ancient
Indo-Aryan tribe
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...
of central
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
whose existence is attested during the
Iron Age
The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...
. The members of the Cedī tribe were named the Caidyas, and were organised into a kingdom, itself also called Cedī.
Location
The territory of Cedī was located near the
Yamunā river, and its neighbours were
Matsya
Matsya () is the fish avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu. Often described as the first of Vishnu's Dashavatara, ten primary avatars, Matsya is described to have rescued the first man, Manu (Hinduism), Manu, from a great deluge. Matsya may be dep ...
in the west across the
Chambal river,
Kāsī in the north-east on the Ganges, the Kāruṣas in east in the valley of the
Son
A son is a male offspring; a boy or a man in relation to his parents. The female counterpart is a daughter. From a biological perspective, a son constitutes a first degree relative.
Social issues
In pre-industrial societies and some current ...
river, and the
Daśārṇas on the banks of the
Dhasan river. The area of Cedī thus corresponded to the eastern part of the modern-day
Bundelkhaṇḍ along with nearby tracts.
The capital of Cedī was named
Sotthivatī in
Pāli
Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a classical Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of '' Therav� ...
and
Śuktimatī in Sanskrit, and was located by a river of the same name. The location of the capital Suktimati has not been established with certainty. Historian
Hem Chandra Raychaudhuri
Hem Chandra Raychaudhuri (; 8 April 1892 – 4 May 1957Raychaudhuri, Hemchandra (1972). ''Political History of Ancient India: From the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty'', Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 7th editio ...
and
F. E. Pargiter
Frederick Eden Pargiter (1852–18 February 1927) was a British civil servant and Orientalist.
Born in 1852, Pargiter was the second son of Rev. Robert Pargiter. He studied at Taunton Grammar School and Exeter College, Oxford where he passed ...
believed that it was in the vicinity of
Banda, Uttar Pradesh. Archaeologist
Dilip Kumar Chakrabarti
Dilip Kumar Chakrabarti (born 27 April 1941) is an Indian archaeologist, Professor Emeritus of South Asian Archaeology at Cambridge University, and a Senior Fellow at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge University. He ...
has proposed that Suktimati can be identified as the ruins of a large
early historical city, at a place with the modern-day name Itaha, on the outskirts of
Rewa, Madhya Pradesh
Rewa is a city in the north-eastern part of Madhya Pradesh state in India. It is the administrative center of Rewa District and Rewa Division. The city lies about northeast of the state capital Bhopal and north of the city of Jabalpur. The ma ...
.
History
The Cedī tribe was mentioned in the
, where their king Caidya is praised in a ("praise of gift") at the end of a hymn. According to the Rigveda, Sisupala, who was an ally of Jarasandh of Magadh and Duryodhan of Kuru, ruled the Chedi kingdom. According to
Hathigumpha Inscription
The Hathigumpha Inscription (pronounced: ɦɑːt̪ʰiːgumpʰɑː) is a seventeen line inscription in a Prakrit language incised in Brahmi script in a cavern called Hathigumpha in Udayagiri hills, near Bhubaneswar in Odisha, India. Dated betwe ...
of Kharvela “A branch of Chedis founded as a royal dynasty in the kingdom
Kalinga.”
By the 6th to 5th centuries BCE, Cedī had become one of the more important states in Iron Age India, due to which the
Buddhist
Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
text, the
, listed it as one of the
s ("sixteen great states").
References
Further reading
*
{{Mahajanapada , state=collapsed
Mahajanapadas
Ancient Indo-Aryan tribes
Yadavas