Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s12.4

c12.s12.4

From the Brāhmaṇas we find that probably a century or two before Buddha, North Indian Aryandom included the following ten states—Gandhāra, Kekaya, Madra, Uśīnara, Matsya, Kuru, Pañcāla, Kāśī, Kosala and Videha. These included practically the entire Aryan-speaking world of say 700 B.C., and these states fell under three groups—Udīcya or Northern (including Gandhāra or the northern part of the present N. W. Frontier province and probably also the continuous parts of Eastern Afghanistan, Kekaya or North-Western Punjab east of the Gandhāra country including part of the Sind Sagar Doab, and the Jeep and Rechna Doabs and Madra in two groups—the Uttara or Northern Madras probably in Kashmir and the Dakṣiṇa or Southern Madras in North Central Punjab consisting of part of the Rechna and Bari Doabs), Madhyadeśa or the Midland (comprising Uśīnara in the west and north, corresponding to N. E. Punjab and N. W. Uttar Pradesh, Matsya or N. E. Rajputana, and Kuru and Pañcāla or Western U. P.) and Prācya or the Eastern (Kosala or Oudh, Kāśī or Eastern U. P., and Videha or Northern Bihar). Other States within this Aryan tract also came to be established quickly enough, Sālva, connected with Matsya, and Magadha and Anga in Bihar to the South of the Ganges. It would appear that the division of Aryan India into these three tracts, Udīcya, Madhyadeśa and Prācya, had some basis in dialectal differences. They correspond roughly to the three-fold division of the Indus valley and the upper Gangetic valley which is still prevalent—Punjab, Pachāhā, and Pūrab, corresponding roughly to the Hindki or Lahnda or Western Punjabi and Eastern Punjabi tracts, to the Western Hindi area, and to the tract of the country in the east where Kosali or Eastern Hindi and the Bihari speeches are spoken. Northern, or North-Western, Midland or Central, and Eastern—these formed the three dialect areas of the Aryan tract by 500 B. C., and to these three we shall have probably to add a fourth—the Dākṣiṇātya or Southern, which at this ancient period was probably not much different from the dialect area of the Midland from where the Aryan language was spreading through Rajputana and Malwa into Gujarat and the trans-Vindhyan tracts.