History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c33.23

v3.c33.23

Rājaśekhara the well-known poet-laureate and also Guru of Mahīpāla (910-940 A.D.) of the Imperial Pratihāras of Kanauj has given in his Kāvya-Mīmānsā a detailed geography of India and it is very probable that this work or the work Bhuvanakośa of the same author to which it refers was before Al-Beruni when he wrote his India a hundred years later. One may wonder why geography of India is introduced in a work on poetics. But the occasion is taken to give this information in warning poets not to make geographical mistakes as they offend the sense of the hearer or reader; for instance he should not describe Kāñchī as situate in the east of India or even give a wrong complexion to the various peoples inhabiting this country. (It is allowable, we suppose, to make historical mistakes and to mention Kṛṣṇa, as Kalidāsa does in Raghu VIII. in a speech of the companion of Indumatī who married at a Svayamvara Aja, ancestor of Rāma, for ordinary people are not expected to be so conversant with ancient history). Whatever the propriety, this geographical chapter in Kāvyamīmānsā is important for the history of this period, as the Skanda Purāṇa geographical chapter was important for the history of the last period (Vol. I. p. 41) or the Varāha Mihira geography was important for the first period (Vol. I. p. 143). Of course we must note that Indian authors are not as scrupulous as Al-Beruni, as they introduce names of countries which are traditional though these countries may not exist in their time. With these remarks we give below the geography of India sketched by Rājaśekhara in his work Kāvya-Mīmānsā chapter 17.