India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c7.s3.13

c7.s3.13

The next great river mentioned in the north-west is the Sindhu after which the country to its east was named Sindhu, the present Sind-Sagar Doab (IV.3.93). Taking its rise from the snows of western Kailāsa in Tibet, the Sindhu first flows north-west for about half of its length, and then reaching the Darad country in the north-west of Kashmīr and south of Little Pamīr it takes a southward course along which lay its most famous places. A geographical feature of the Indus descending from the defiles of Dardistan is expressed in the grammatical formation *Dāradī Sindhuḥ*, naming it after its immediate source (*Prabhavati*, IV.3.83). Emerging from the Darad highlands the river enters the Gandhāra country with Swat or Uḍḍiyāna on its right and the ancient *janapada* of Uraśā (mod. Hazara in N.W.F.P.) on its left until it receives its most important western tributary the Kabul river at Ohind, a few miles north of Attock where it is at present crossed by a bridge. Ohind was the ancient Udbhāṇḍa, the place of transhipment of goods across the Sindhu and the spot where the great northern trade-route called Uttarapatha in *sūtra* V.1.77 crossed the river. Pāṇini's own birth-place, Śalātura was a riparian town of the Indus situated at a distance of only about four miles from Ohind in the angle of the Kubhā and the Sindhu. About sixty miles east of Ubhāṇḍa was Takshaśilā, the eastern capital of Gandhāra, and at an equal distance to the west was Pushkalāvatī (mod. Charsadda), its western capital. The trans-Indus country was known in ancient times as *Pāre-Sindhu* (*Sabhāparva*, 51-11). Its famous breed of mares imported into India is mentioned by Pāṇini as *Pāre-vaḍavā*, 'the mare from beyond the border' (VI.2.42).