A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c9.7

c9.7

The grammarian Pānini, who may be taken to have lived more or less about 600 B.C., mentions only Kalinga in the east and knows nothing south of the Narmada on the west except the country of Aśmaka, near the headwaters of the Godāvari. The Sutta Nipāta of the Buddhist canon records that a teacher Bāvari left Kosala and settled in a village on the Godāvari in the Assaka country in Dakshināpatha. His pupils are said to have gone north to meet the Buddha and their route lay through Patitthāna (Paithan) in the Mulaka country, Māhishmati (Māndhāta) on the Narmada, and Ujjain. Bāvari is said to have been learned in the Vedas and performed Vedic sacrifices. Probably we have in him the type of many a teacher who took part in the task of colonizing and aryanizing the southern lands by a process of slow and peaceful permeation. The descriptions of āśramas, abodes of ascetics situated in the Dandaka forest, which are found in the Rāmāyana of Vālmiki confirm the impression derived from the story of the teacher Bāvari.