As to the Panchalas, we have seen that they represent the old Krivis. It is, however, likely that the latter combined with several small tribes to make up the later nation. A Brahmana passage contains an indication that the Turvaças may have been one of these. Perhaps the Yadus, generally associated with the Turvaças in the Rigveda, were also one of them. The epic still preserves the name, in the patronymic form of Yadava, as that of the race in which Krishna was born. The name of the Panchalas itself (derived from pancha, five) seems to indicate that this people consisted of an aggregate of five elements.
Some of the tribes mentioned in the Rigveda, however, maintained their individual identity under their old names down to the epic period. These were the Uçinaras, Srinjayas, Matsyas, and Chedis.
It is interesting to note that the Rigveda refers to a rich and powerful prince called Ikshvaku. In the epic this name recurs as that of a mighty king who ruled to the east of the Ganges in the city of Ayodhya (Oudh) and was the founder of the Solar race.
It is clear from what has been said that the Vedic Aryans were split up into numerous tribes, which, though conscious of their unity in race, language, and religion, had no political cohesion. They occasionally formed coalitions, it is true, but were just as often at war with one another. The tribe, in fact, was the political unit, organised much in the same way as the Afghans are at the present day, or the Germans were in the time of Tacitus. The tribe (jana) consisted of a number of settlements (viç), which again were formed of an aggregate of villages (grama). The fighting organisation of the tribe appears to have been based on these divisions. The houses forming the village seem to have been built entirely of wood, as they still were in the time of Megasthenes. In the midst of each house the domestic fire burnt. For protection against foes or inundations, fortified enclosures (called pur) were made on eminences. They consisted of earthworks strengthened with a stockade, or occasionally with stone. There is nothing to show that they were inhabited, much less that pur ever meant a town or city, as it did in later times.