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").

Location

History

References

Further reading