The Nisadas live in the forests.
The grand sire of the nisada tribe living in forests was one Nisada. Those forest dwellers came to be known as nisadas as they were the descendants of this Nisada. The Puranic story about the origin of Nisada is as follows:
Once upon a time there lived a King called Vena. A very immoral ruler, he was hated by the people. As dharma declined in the country due to the misrule of Vena the Maharsis killed him with darbha grass sanctified by mantras. Then the Maharsis saw dust rising up everywhere and people told them that the poor people, in the absence of king, had turned into thieves and the dust was formed by the onrush of the thieves.
To remedy the problem thus created the maharsis churned the thigh of Vena, who had died childless, for a son, and from the thigh was born a male child, dark in colour, dwarfish and with a compressed face.
Sadly he asked the brahmins (maharsis) what he should do.
They asked him to sit (nishida) and hence he became Nishada (forest-dweller). His descendants settled down on mount Vindhya and they by their sinful lives divested Vena of his sins.
Vena was absolved of his sins through the Nishadas, and thus the Nishadas became’responsible for the ending of Vena’s sins.
(Visnu Purana, Part 1, Chapter 13)
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