India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c7.s3.10

c7.s3.10

*FORESTS*—Several names of forests are mentioned in *sūtras* VIII.4.4-5. Of these the five names enumerated in the first *sūtra* occur also in the *Kōṭarādi gaṇa* giving a list of forest names (VI.3.117). Of these the Puragāvaṇa seems to be connected with Pāṭaliputra as the *Gaṇaratnamahōdadhi* associates the Yakshī Puragā with Pāṭaliputra (verse 291). Miśrakāvaṇa appears to be the name of the well-known forest of Misrikh in Sitapur district. The Pāli literature, however, makes Missaka a mythical forest of the Tāvatiṁsa heaven (*Jātaka*, VI.278; *Dict. Pāli Proper Names*). The other names, *i.e.* Sidhrakā-, Sārikā-, Koṭarā- and Agrevaṇa are unidentified. Similarly names like Śaravaṇa, Ikshuvaṇa, Plakshavaṇa, Āmravaṇa, Kārshya-vaṇa, Khadiravaṇa and Piyūkshābaṇa included in *sūtra* VIII.4.5 cannot be definitely identified since Pāṇini takes them both as proper and common names. Some of these proper names are known in Pāli works; they may not have been big forests but mere groves of trees situated in the vicinity of big towns. For example, Khadiravaṇa occurs in the *Aṅguttara Nikāya* as the birth-place of the teacher Revata who was the foremost of the forest recluses and called Khadiravaṇīya after the place of his birth. Similarly Śaravaṇa is said to have been a settlement in the neighbourhood of Śrāvastī, where another great teacher Gosāla Maṅkhaliputta was born. Āmravaṇa is said to have been attached to the city of Rājagṛiha, and also Kāmpilya.