Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c5.11

c5.11

the Ganges basin; the Bengal-Assam borderland of riverine plain, hill and jungle; central India with north-westerly extension into Gujarāt; and the southern plateau with its flanking coastlands. Other features will be noted as need arises, but at this point a plea may be inserted. The time has come for a careful study of the human geography of the subcontinent in far smaller sub-units than have hitherto been attempted with any approach to systematic completeness. Professor B. Subbarao has made a useful beginning in Gujarāt, but more is needed. Areas, say, a hundred miles—or even five hundred miles—square, selected arbitrarily at any point of the map and analysed in respect of settlement and traffic at all periods down to the present day, would be of incalculable value to our understanding of the land, its peoples, and their secular interaction. Such analysis is an urgent preamble to further progress in the studies with which this little book is concerned.