Jaya to Bharata to Mahabharata : The Epic War of North India
1000-600 BC Aryans increasingly creates chiefdoms across the northern Indian plains. These typically consists of King's palace, surrounded by a handful of villages, then grazing lands for King's herd of cows and horses - beyond these it was typically rivers or forests. Kings were called vishampati or gopati - meaning protector of people and cows. The word King is loosely used here since the chiefs were not quite comparable to our present day understanding of the word King. Many would say the first King ever in India was in Magadha post 600 BC by the name of Bimbisara or even later during the Mauryan empire (Chandragupta Maurya, 230 BC). At best they were large chiefs - something akin to a chief of villages. However, it might be noted that during the 1000-600 times also Magadha was a relatively large, prosperous kingdom due to the fertile lands between Ganges and river Son. While Magadha was growing in clout, further up in North Western plains two families entered a feud