The Geography of the Puranas c11.s2.14

c11.s2.14

This classification of rivers has a further significance. The tribes or communities living in isolated valleys of small streams or rivers in the northern or western mountain tracts, have always been able to retain their identity and individuality, but while tribes living on the banks of major rivers or in plains between them had better chances to expand, enlarge or consolidate their territories, they were vulnerable to forces from without which led to their expulsion or even extinction. Thus, historically the small cultural or territorial units in mountain valleys have been more ‘stable’ than the bigger units in the plains which may be termed ‘mobile’. It is for this reason that we find discrepancies in the location of the latter in the accounts of the Mahābhārata, Kāvyamīmāṃsa, or even in various Purāṇas as well as in the Greek and the Arab literature. On the other hand, there is a considerable amount of unanimity among the various ancient and medieval works regarding the districts or janapadas occupied by the tribes of the hilly regions in the north and west. We can legitimately doubt if the area indicated in the Mahābhārata as that occupied by the Śūdras or Abhīras is the same to which the Purāṇas refer or if it at all corresponds to the Sodrii or Abiria of Ptolemy, but we can safely assume that the land of the Darudas, Aurasas or Lampākas is the same as Dardrai, Arsa or Lambatai referred to in Greek works.