Mleccha
Mleccha, “one of a foreign people”
Grammar: masculine noun, from the root mlech (to speak indistinctly): “one whose speech is not clear”, a man of a foreign people.
Meaning: one of the peoples who live outside the order of the Vedas and the varṇas; in the plural, those peoples and their lands.
In the scriptures: the ṛshis, describing Jambūdvīpa to the rākshasa king Sukeśī, tell of Kumāra-dvīpa, the part of Bhāratavarsha bounded by the ocean, with the Kirātas to its east, the Yavanas to its west, the Āndhras to its south and the Turushkas to its north. With its seven kula-parvatas (chief mountains) and the many other mountain regions, many janapadas (peoples and their lands) of mlecchas and āryas arose (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 13).
King Vena died wicked, a reviler of the world and the Vedas, without doing the rites enjoined on him. His son, the king born from Vena’s right hand, asked Nārada how his adhārmika father could reach the higher worlds. By divine sight Nārada told him that his father had been born among the mlecchas, with kshaya (wasting disease) and kushṭha (leprosy). The son went to the northern lands, found his father suffering among the mlecchas and grieved. He asked the mlecchas’ leave to take him home and make him free of disease, and they bowed and said, “So be it, as you wish.” He carried his father in a palanquin to the Sthāṇu tīrtha in Kurukshetra (Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 26).
Related terms: Ārya · Janapada · Yavana · Kirāta · Vena
Sources
- Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 13
- Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 26