India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c7.s5.77

c7.s5.77

That ancient India possessed a large number of flourishing centres of population in the form of cities or towns is also attested to by Greek writers. According to them the Panjab was full of towns, centres of industry and economic prosperity. Many of these figured as forts or centres of defence such as the famous town of Massage (Maśakāvatī) or Aornos (Varaṇā) in the country of the Aśvakas. The free clan called the Glaukanikoi (identical with the Glauchukāyanakas of the *Kāśikā* on Pāṇini IV.3.99) whose country lay in the fertile and populous regions lying in the south of Kāśmīr (the Bhimber and Rajauri districts) between the upper courses of the Jhelum and the Chenab and the Ravi, had as many as thirty-seven cities, the smallest of which contained not fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, while many contained upwards of 10,000. There were also a great many villages which were not less populous than the towns (M'Crindle, *Alexander*, p. 112). Strabo affirms that in the territories of the nine nations situated between the Jhelum and the Beas, such as the Malloi, Oxydrakai and others, there were as many as 500 cities (*Ibid*, p. 112). Megasthenes makes the following general statement on the cities of Mauryan India: "Of their cities it is said that the number is so great that it cannot be stated with precision" (M'Crindle's *Megasthenes and Arrian*, p. 209).