India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c12.s6.70

c12.s6.70

(5) *Madhumant*.—Pāṇini mentions Madhumat as the name of a country in the region of Gandhāra (*Kachchhādi*, IV.2.133; *Sindhvādi*, IV.3.93). The name occurs in *sūtra* IV.2.86 also as a *deśa-nāma*. The *Mahābhārata* mentions the *Madhumantaḥ* as a people of the north-west (Bhīshmaparva, IX.53). The Madhumants are clearly the Mohmands, who occupy the territory to the north of the Kabul river, their home-land Dīr-Bajaur covering an area of 1200 sq. miles (*Afghanistan Gaz.*, p. 225). On the map one can at once notice the relative position of these two powerful tribes who were close neighbours. What appear to be the ancient names of Dīr and Tīrāh are preserved in Patañjali, who refers to *Dvirāvatīko deśaḥ*, *Trīravatīko deśaḥ* as pair names (*Bhāshya*, I.4.1; I.301; II.1.20; I.382). The former is Dīr (land of the two rivers) so called from the Mohmand homeland between the Kunar and Panjkora rivers. Similarly the extensive Afridi-Tīrāh was *Trīrāvatīka*, from the three rivers Kabul, Bara and Indus (*Kubhā-Varā-Sindhu*) which enclose it.