The Geography of the Puranas c21: Appendix

The Geography of the Purāṇas c21

Language: English

c21.s1 Saka Dwipa — 15 parts

Appendix

Saka Dwipa

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THE following letters regarding the Saka Dwipa from two eminent scholars and my reply thereto are self-explanatory and may be of interest to the readers:

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*Copy of a letter from Pandit Dwarka Prasad Mishra to Prof. S. M. Ali, dated 26 October 1962.*

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I have now been able to go through the manuscript. It is a great work and I have no doubt that it would be translated in various Indian languages.

I have only one important point to raise. I am convinced that your identification of Shakdwipa (Sakadwipa) is wrong. We have so much literature in Sanskrit regarding Brahmins from Shakdwipa migrating to India and introducing Sun-worship here that it has been taken for granted that this Dwipa was somewhere close to Iran, probably eastern Iran. I would, therefore, like you to reconsider the matter. There are one or two other doubtful identifications but they are rather unimportant....

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Yours sincerely, D. P. MISHRA

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*Copy of a letter from Dr. Sampurnanand, Rajyapal, Rajasthan, Jaipur, to Prof. S. M. Ali, 4 January 1963.*

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MY DEAR PROF. ALI,

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I have gone through your book and am returning it herewith. Let me confess that my study of the work has been rather cursory. I should like to congratulate you on the very useful book which you have written. Some other people have also written on the subject of the geography of ancient India. From the bibliography attached at the end of the book, it seems that at least some of these books have not attracted your notice. Some of them are well worth reading. I can realise that there is considerable room for difference of opinion about some of the questions involved in such a study, but hard work put in by pioneers like you is never wasted. Further research may upset some of the results arrived at by previous workers in the field but later authors can never sufficiently repay the debt they owe to those who have gone before them. I trust it will be possible for you to bring out an edition in Hindi.

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As an example, a question on which it is possible to have two opinions at present, I refer to what you have said about the Sakadwipa. There are many who would place this area somewhere to the north-west of what is now India. In the first place, there is the association with the Sakas or Scythians who certainly invaded India in historical times from the north-west. Among other evidence, I may refer to the origin ascribed in ancient literature to the Sakadwipi Brahman community living in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Western Bihar. They themselves say that they were invited to India to cure Sri Krishna's grandson Shamba who was suffering from leprosy. They were reputed to be great adepts of the cult of Surya in their homelands. They were known as maga (magis?) Brahmans. You know very well that the priests of the Scythians were known as Magi. They are referred to by this name not only in old Persian literature but even in the Bible. All this would suggest that the land of the Sakas was the land of the Scythians who certainly lived beyond our western frontiers. However, these things only point to the necessity of making further study of this very important subject.

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Yours sincerely, SAMPURNANAND

III

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*Reply by Prof. S. M. Ali to Dr. Sampurnanand, dated 11 February 1963.*

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MY DEAR BABUJI,

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I am extremely grateful to you for your kind and affectionate letter which I find so encouraging. I wish I could get an opportunity of discussing with you personally a few points in addition to those which you have raised in your letter.

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As regards Sakadwipa, I may venture to say that I spent some time on its identification for which I mainly relied on the notices of the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa, e.g. Mbt. (12.14, 21.5), and (6.11.4), Rāmāyaṇa (4.40, 19.54), and (4.43.12), etc., which place Sakadwipa east of Meru. Besides this, if we equate Sakadwipa with Seistan or any other region of Central or Western Asia, it does not fit into the Purāṇic plan of 7 Dwīpas or Continents of the World. Regional descriptions of the Purāṇas show undoubtedly and explicitly that most of the smaller regions of Central and Western Asia which are generally associated with Scythians (as in the *Geography* of Herodotus and Smiths' *Geographical Dictionary*) or Sakas were included in Jambu Dwipa.

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Sakas are also expressly mentioned in the Mbt. and practically in all the Purāṇas as a (barbarian?) tribe dwelling in the north or north-west. But it is to be noted that nowhere do they connect Sakas with Sakadwipa. The two terms are entirely independent of each other.

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It is true that Scythians penetrated into India from the northwest and that Sakas denote Scythians. It appears to be correct that magis or magas (Scythian priests) or maga Brahmins migrated to Bhārat from their homeland and settled down as scattered communities in the north-west. If the maga Brahmins say that they migrated from the ‘land where Sakas lived’, they are literally correct. But this assertion is certainly independent of the fact that ‘Sakadwipa’ is the old name of one of the ‘Seven Continents of the World.’ In other words, in the former case Sakadwipa= the land of Sakas (a people), and in the latter Sakadwipa= the teak region of the world.

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I feel that I may not have made myself clear in the above paragraphs but I am certain that the term Sakadwipa (loosely applied to land of Saka people) was coined much later and gave cause to be confused with the established name Sakadwipa, one of the Seven Purāṇic Continents. In fact the name Saka-sthan (Seistan) was a better term to indicate the name of the land where Sakas lived.

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I am sorry I have taken much of your valuable time, but I feel so encouraged when I get an opportunity of discussing Ancient Indian Geography with eminent scholars like you who really understand what I want to say.

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With respectful regards,

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Yours sincerely, S. M. ALI

IV

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Dr. Sampurnanand’s reply to Prof. S. M. Ali, dated 17 February 1963.

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