India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c13.s1.2

c13.s1.2

*JANAPADAS IN INDIA*—In India the number of *Janapada* States was quite large. Pāṇini gives a rich picture of *Janapadas* extending from Kamboja to Aśmaka and Sauvīra to Sūramasa, of which the geographical aspect has been dealt with in Chapter II and illustrated in the accompanying maps. The *Janapada* experiment in India was on a much larger scale than in the case of Greek city-states with regard to their extension both in place and time. The fuller lists of Indian *Janapadas* containing about 175 names, are preserved in the Bhuvanakosha chapters of the *Purāṇas* (*Vāyu*, ch. 45; *Matsya*, ch. 114; *Mārkaṇḍeya*, ch. 57; *Brahmāṇḍa*, ch. 49; *Vāmana*, ch. 13; cf. D. C. Sircar, Text of the Puranic List of Peoples, *I.H.Q.*, XXX, 1945, pp. 297-314). Almost all *Janapada* names in Pāṇini are traceable to that list. The territorial divisions envisaged there are (1) Madhya, (2) Prāchya, (3) Udīchya, (4) Dakshiṇāpatha, (5) Aparānta, (6) Vindhyaprishṭha, and (7) Parvata, and the Janapada names are grouped accordingly, which affords a clear picture of the States spread in all parts of the country. The *Parvatāśrayin Janapadas* of the *Purāṇas* find pointed mention in Pāṇini as *āyudha-jīvins* of the Parvata country (IV.3.91), i.e., military high-landers settled in the north-west of India and in the Trigarta country, as explained above (*ante*, pp. 434-6).