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The Kirāta (Sanskrit: किरात) is a generic term in Sanskrit literature for people who had territory in the mountains, particularly in the Himalayas and Northeast India and who are believed to have been Sino-Tibetan in origin.

Historical mention and mythology

The Kiratas often mentioned along with Cinas (Chinese), and slightly different from the Nishadas, are first mentioned in the Yajurveda (Shukla XXX.16; Krisha III.4,12,1), and in the Atharvaveda (X.4,14). According to Suniti Kumar Chatterji, the name Kirata seems to be used for any non-Aryan hill-folk, however Manu's Dharmashastra (X.44) calls them "degraded Kshatriyas", which Chatterji infers to be a term for people who were advanced in military or civilization to some degree and not complete barbarians. It is speculated that the term is a Sanskritization of a Tibeto-Burman tribal name, like that of Kirant or Kiranti of eastern Nepal.

In the Periplus, the Kirata are called Kirradai, who are the same people as the Pliny's Scyrites and Aelian's Skiratai; though Ptolemy does not name them, he does mention their land which is called Kirradia. They are characterized as barbaric in their ways, Mongoloid in appearance speaking a Tibeto-Burmese language.

The Sesatai (known to Ptolemy and Pliny the Elder as Saesadai or Sosaeadae), who traded the aromatic plant malabathrum, were described – in terms similar to descriptions of the Kirradai – as short and flat-faced, but also shaggy and white.

Ancient Indian texts gives an indication of their geographical position. In the Mahabharata, Bhima meets the Kiratas to the east of Videha, where his son Ghatotkacha is born; and in general, the dwellers of the Himalayas, especially the eastern Himalayas, were called Kiratas. In general they are mentioned as "gold-like", or yellow, unlike the Nishadas or the Dasas, who were dark Austric people.

In Yoga Vasistha 1.15.5 Rama speaks of kirateneva vagura, "a trap by Kiratas", so about 10th century BCE, they were thought of as jungle trappers, the ones who dug pits to capture roving deer. The same text also speaks of King Suraghu, the head of the Kiratas who is a friend of the Persian King, Parigha.

The meaning of 'Kirat' as is sometime referred as 'degraded, mountainous tribe' while other scholars attribute more respectable meanings to this term and say that it denotes people with the lion's character, or mountain dwellers.

Modern scholarship

Sylvain Lévi (1985) concluded that Kirata was a general term used by the Hindus of the plains to designate the Tibeto-Burman speaking groups of the Himalayas and Northeast.

See also

• Kirata kingdom
• Kirātārjunīya, poem about Arjuna and Shiva (disguised as a Kirata) set in southern India
• Kingdoms of Ancient India
• Kirati people, a modern ethnic group

Notes

1. Radhakumud Mukharji (2009), Hindu Shabhyata, Rajkamal Prakashan Pvt Ltd, ISBN 978-81-267-0503-0, ... किरात (मंगोल) : द्रविड़ भाषाओं से भिन्न यह भाषाओं में किरात या ...
2. Shiva Prasad Dabral (1965), Uttarākhaṇḍ kā itihās, Volume 2, Vīr-Gāthā-Prakāshan, ... प्राचीन साहित्य में किरात-संस्कृति, किरात-भूमि ...
3. (Chatterji 1974:26)
4. ^ (Chatterji 1974:28)
5. "...among whom are the Kirradai, a race of wild men with flattened noses" (Casson 1989, p. 89)
6. "They are characterized as barbaric in their ways and Mongoloid in appearance (Shafer 124). From the widespread area in which the literary sources place the Kiratas Heine-Geldern (167) concludes that the name was a general designation for all the Mongoloid peoples of the north and east. Shafer (124), on the basis of the nomenclature of their kings, concludes that they spoke a Tibeto-Burmic language and were the predecessors of the Kirantis, now living in the easternmost province of Nepal."(Casson 1989, p. 234)
7. "Ptolemy calls them Saesadai and describes them more fully; they are not only short and flat-faced, as in the Periplus, but shaggy and white-skinned. ... The characteristics themselves indicate that the Sesatai were similar to the Kirradai, and their access to the border with China indicates that they lived, as Coedes suggests 'between Assam and China'". (Casson 1989, pp. 242–243)
8. (Chatterji 1974:30)
9. (Chatterji 1974:31)
10. The Indian Journal of Social Work, Volume 62 By Department of Publications, Tata Institute of Social Sciences in 2001
11. Concept of tribal society 2002 Page 32 Deepak Kumar Behera, Georg Pfeffer "Does this mean that the Kirata were a well-defined group, a kind of ancient Himalayan tribe, which has been there for times immemorial (as popular usage often implies)? A critical look at the evidence leads to different considerations. Already the Indologist Sylvain Lévi concluded that Kirata was a general term used by the Hindus of the plains to designate the Tibeto-Burman speaking groups of the Himalayas and Northeast Thus it is unlikely that the Kirata who ruled the Kathmandu Valley were a particular ethnic group. Rather the evidence suggests that they were forefathers of the present-day Newar (the Tibeto-Burman speaking indigenous people of the valley)"

References

• Chatterji, S. K. (1974). Kirata-Jana-Krti. Calcutta: The Asiatic Society.
• Casson, Lionel (1989). The Periplus Maris Erythraei. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-04060-5.

• Sanskrit words and phrases