The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c15.s1.2

c15.s1.2

This account, based on geography and archaeology, is not belied by literature. I do not share the prejudices of some of our Western colleagues about the use of literary data in archaeology. These are questions of manner, and not of matter; of interpretation, and not of facts. The major drawback of our literary sources is their imperfect chronology and constant interpolation.¹ But some of the evidence may be used with caution. How else can one explain the beautiful and expanding vista of geographic horizons of literary works arranged in a chronological order on linguistic and other evidence by Maxmuller, Macdonnell, etc. Radhakumud Mookerji² has well condensed the geographic data from Rigvedic, Later Vedic and Post-Vedic literature. The focus of the Rigvedic age was the upper Indus Basin, particularly the eastern fringes of it, called Brahmavarta or the Indo-Gangetic Divide (Valleys of Sarasvati and Drishadvati). In the Later Vedic the west recedes into the background and regions of the Central Gangetic valley like Kosala, Videha, Anga, Magadha come into prominence. The tribes on the fringes of the Vindhyas like Andhra, Pulinda, Mutiba, Sabara, Nishada come for mention. In the Post-Vedic Sutra and Dharmasastra literature (dated by Macdonnell between 800 and 300 B.C.), kingdoms south of Vindhyas like Kalinga begin to be mentioned by authors like Panini. In the early Buddhist literature some of the kingdoms in Northern and Central Deccan appear. By the 4th century B.C., our evidence becomes abundant and varied : Megasthenes, Arthasastra, and the indisputable contemporary sermons on stone of the Emperor Asoka.