The Geography of the Puranas c11.s3: III. The South-Western Janapadas
The Geography of the Purāṇas c11.s3
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III. The South-Western Janapadas
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The Matsya Purāṇa enumerates the following janapadas which are designated as the ‘Western Janapadas’:
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(a) (i) Bhārukaccha which has been rightly identified as the Broach region. To be precise, this coastal janapada was located north of the estuary of the Narmadā and extended to the south of the Māhī.
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(ii) Samahīya janapada is associated with the Māhī river and appears to have been contiguous to Bhārukaccha. The relief feature which demarcated the two janapadas in the dead-level coastal plain could only be the lower Māhī which forms a wide estuary at its mouth. It appears to have included the whole basin of the Sabarmatī situated north of the Māhī.
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(iii) Saraswata janapada coincided with the region drained by the river Saraswatī which falls into the Rann of Cutch. It corresponds to the Patan-Mehsana plain between the foothills of the Aravallis and the Cutch.
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(iv) The Saraswata adjoined the Arbuda janapada which was situated to its north-east and occupied the south-western spurs of the Aravallis which contained and enclosed the headwaters of the rivers Sabarmatī and Banas. It may have coincided with the Sirohi-Kotra-Palanpur triangle.
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(v) Kachika janapada was no doubt the Cutch region.
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(vi) The Kathiawar peninsula was divided into two janapadas, Ānarta and Saurāṣṭra, the former occupying the northern half and the latter the southern—both separated by the thickly forested mountain core of the peninsula.
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(b) A few more janapadas have been included by other Purāṇas (except Matsya) in the western region of Bhāratavarṣa, but Matsya locates them in the south and includes them in its list of southern janapadas. The conclusion is that Matsya prefers Narmadā as the natural and cultural boundary between southern India and the rest of the country. Other Purāṇas carry this boundary further south to include the Tāptī valley and, as we will see presently, their boundary followed the crest of the hills (Sahyadri, Gawilgarh, Ajanta, Mahadeo and Maikal) which extend in a general east-west direction south of the Tāptī.
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The janapadas which have been added by some Purāṇas on account of the shifting of the dividing line between north and south India are as follows:
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(i) Surāla (Sirāla, Murala). This janapada in all probability coincided with the lower Tāpti basin centred round Surat and Navasari which command this region. This identification has a purely regional basis and needs confirmation from extra-geographical sources.
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(ii) Tāpasa (Tāmasa, Svāpada) janapada was identical with the Khandeś region which played an important rôle in medieval history. It covered the whole of the middle Tāpti basin between the Sahyadri and Satpura hills and lay athwart the east-west route, along the Tāpti valley and the subsidiary southern route to upper Godāvari. Its core appears to have been roughly the quadrilateral formed by the towns of Savda (near Bhusawal), Pacora, south-west of Jalgaon, Songir and Tapal as shown on modern maps.
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(iii) Further up the Tāpti valley there appears to have been another janapada, Turiamina which was drained by the upper Tāpti. This janapada is likely to have covered the whole valley of the Tāpti between Badnur and Burhanpur and approximately coincided with southern Nimār.
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(iv) The valley of the river Purnā, a tributary of the Tāpti, which is separated from the former by the Gawilgarh Hills was divided into two territories. The middle and lower Purnā valley formed the Rūpasa janapada, and the upper Purnā valley, the Kāraskara. The latter occupied the southern foothills of the Gawilgarh hills near the existing Elichpur and Karasgaon towns in northern Amarāvati.
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(v) Nāsikya appears to be associated with the present town of Nasik and the janapada probably covered the whole of the Darna basin in which Nasik is situated. The Vāyu Purāṇa adds that, besides these janapadas, there are others also which are located on the banks of the Narmadā but their names are not mentioned. This statement shows that the above janapadas are exclusive of the Narmadā janapadas, which is correct since none of the janapadas mentioned above happens to lie in or about the Narmadā valley.
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(c) The following janapadas have been added to the list of western janapadas by some Purāṇas (Mārkaṇḍeya, Vāyu and Brahmāṇḍa) but have been omitted altogether by the Matsya. This shows that these janapadas were added when more details regarding the western coast of India became available.
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(i) Sūrparaka (or Sūryāraka) is evidently the western coastal plain drained by the river Sūrya which runs parallel to the coast from north to south and enters the sea near Bassein. It approximately coincides with the Thana district of Maharashtra. In fact both the names of this janapada as given by different Purāṇas are correct. The sites of Safale, Nala Sopara and Sopara which occur within this region are marked on modern maps.
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(ii) Kālavana (Kolavana) appears to be associated with the town of Kalvan which stands on the Girna river, a southern tributary of the Tāpti. The Kālavana janapada, if so identified, covered the Girna valley up to the point where it descended from the plateau into the plain of the Tāpti (Khāndes), i.e., up to Chalisgaon. It was separated from the Nāsikya janapada by the Chandor range and the Surāla janapada by the crest of the Western Ghats.
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(iii) There are only two regions in the western coastal plain which remain unaccounted for in the above scheme of identifications. One is the coastal plain between the mouths of the Tāpti and Narmadā rivers and the other between the Surāla and Sūyāraka janapadas. The former may be the Kuliya janapada drained by the Kim river and the latter the Durgā. If this assumption is correct one is tempted to identify the modern Daman-Gangā with the Durgā river of the Purāṇas.
Linked texts (1)
- Matsyapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit