Surasena, Mahajanapadas

The Surasena, Kingdom, with its capital at Mathura, on the bank of the river Yamuna, was inhospitable because of ‘uneven roads, excessive dust, vicious talks and demons’. The Mahabharata and the Puranas refer to the ruling family of Mathura as belonging to the Yadava clan with which is associated the epic hero Krishna. The Yadava clan was divided into smaller clans like the Andhakas, Vrishani, Mahabhogas, etc. They two had a Samgha form of government. Mathura was strategically located at the junction of the two famous ancient Indian trade routes i.e. the Uttarapatha and the Dakshinapatha. This was because Mathura represented the ancient zone between the Gangetic plains having settled agriculture and the sparsely populated pasture lands jutting into the Malwa plateau. It could emerge as a powerful kingdom because of its varied landscape and splintered political structure. The chiefs could not give it a cohesive form of control.