Dr Ram Vilas Sharma writes in one of his essays, “The republics of Bharata, Kaushal and Magadh played a decisive role in ancient India … The Bharatas followed the custom of sacrificial rituals. Magadhas were completely against it … The land of Magadh was the base for the launch of the Jain and Buddhist religions … Somewhere in between the Bharatas and the Magadhas were the Kaushals. They were neither ritualists nor did they propagate ideas that contradicted the Vedas. They were mainly poets and poetry-loving people. The two epics, Mahabharata and Ramayana, have a close relationship with the Kaushal republic. Valmiki lived by the banks of the Tamasa river. He is famous as the adikavi (the original poet). In Rabindranath Tagore’s poem Bhasha aur Chhand (Language and Rhyme), Valmiki tells Narad, “Till now, poems were written on Gods; in my poem, I shall immortalize man .”[1]
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