India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c7.s3.17

c7.s3.17

*DEVIKĀ*—Pāṇini also mentions the river Devikā and what grew on its bank (*Dāvikā-kūla*, VII. 31.1), which Patañjali describes to be *śāli* rice (III. 316). Pargiter rightly identified it with the river Deg (*Mārk. Purāṇa*, p. 292). According to the *Vishṇudharmottara Purāṇa* (I.67.15) the Devikā flowed through the Madra country, and joined the Ravi according to the *Vāmana* (ch. 84). Rising in the Jammu hills, the Deg flows through Sialkot and Sheikhupura districts and joins the Ravi. In each rainy season it deposits on its banks layers of rich alluvium soil which produce rice of fine quality that are famous all over the Punjab and exported from Muridke and Kamoke towns. (cf. Jagannath Agarwal, On the Identification of the Devikā, *JUPHS*, 1944, Pt. II, pp. 76-79).