Shivi

Chinese traveler Faxian records the scene of this story at So-ho-to (Swat), a country to the south of Oddiyana between the Kabol and the Indus rivers.

[3] Thus, the Chinese evidence connects king Sivi/Sivika and the Sivi people or country with the Oddiyana/Swat territory between the Kabol and Indus rivers, which forms part of modern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.

King Vessantara as a Bodhisatta had given away his magical elephant (which could bring rain on the asking) to a hostile country, and also his kingdom as well as his family with two children to a greedy Brahmana, all as acts of benevolence and generosity.

It appears likely that the Sivis originally lived in north of river Kabol in remote antiquity, from where sections of them moved southwards in later times and settled in what is called Seva around Bolan Pass, which region was known as Sivistan till recently.

Pāṇini also mentions a place called Sivapura which he includes in the Udichya (northern) division of Ancient India [19] and which is identified by some scholars with Sibipura of the Shorkot Inscriptions edited by Vogel.

[20] Sivis also are attested to have one settlement in Sind, another one in Madhyamika (Tambavati Nagri) near Chittore (in Rajputana) and yet another one on the Dasa Kumara-chrita on the banks of the Kaveri in southern India (Karnataka/Tamil Nadu).