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Kuruvath Family Origin Kuru (Sanskrit: कुरु) was the name of a tribe in Iron Age India, which developed into the first recorded state-level society in South Asia around 1200 BCE,[1] and was later one of many Mahajanapada states towards the end of the Vedic period.[2] The Kuru clan was based in the area of modern Haryana, Delhi and western parts of Uttar Pradesh (the region of Doab, till Prayag/Kaushambi) in northern India.[3] It made important contributions to the society, religion, and government of ancient Indian civilization.[4]
History The Kurus figure prominently in the later Rigveda. The Kurus here appear as a branch of the early Indo-Aryans, ruling the Ganga-Jamuna Doab and modern Haryana (earlier Eastern Punjab). The focus in the later Vedic period shifted out of Punjab, into the Doab, and thus to the Kuru clan.[5] The increasing number and size of Painted Grey Ware (PGW) settlements in the Doab area shows this. These developments resulted in the substantial enlargement of certain settlements such as Hastinapur and Kaushambi towards the end of the Later Vedic period. These settlements slowly began to acquire characteristics of towns. The Kuru tribe was formed, in the Early Vedic period, as a result of the alliance and merger between the Bharata and Puru tribes.[6] TheAtharvaveda (XX.127) refers to certain Parikshita as the "Chief of the Kurus".[7] With their center of power in the Kurukshetra region, the Kurus formed the first political center of the Vedic period, and were dominant roughly from 1200 to 800 BCE.[8] The first Kuru capital was at Āsandīvat,[9] identified with modern Assandh in Haryana.[10][11] Later literature refers to Indraprastha (modern Delhi) and Hastinapura as the main Kuru cities.[12]
The later Kuru state in the Mahajanapada period, c. 600 BCE The Kurus declined after being defeated by the non-Vedic Salva tribe, and the center of Vedic culture shifted east, into the Panchala realm, in Uttar Pradesh.[13] In the later Vedic period, the capital of the Kurus was transferred to Kaushambi, in the lower Doab, after Hastinapur was destroyed by floods [14] as well as because of upheavals in the Kuru family itself.[15][16] In the late Vedic period (by the 6th century BC), the Kuru dynasty evolved into Kuru and Vatsa janapadas, ruling over Upper Doab/Delhi/Haryana and lower Doab, respectively. The Vatsa branch of the Kuru dynasty further divided into branches at Kaushambi and at Mathura
Ref: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_Kingdom