The Geography of the Puranas c7.s1.13

c7.s1.13

The human geography, which finds its roots in the Ṛgveda is carried over and reoriented in subsequent Vedic literature. The reorientation and revision of the facts of human geography (including economic, social and cultural) has been a progressive and continuous process, since it is linked with the progress of man and the crystallisation of human activities. The specialisation of occupations and its corollary, the caste system, the status of different human groups, development of civic sense and growing mental and physical needs, naturally resulted in the changing pattern of physical and cultural landscape. The simple Ṛgveda pattern gradually developed into the complicated but picturesque pattern of the Purāṇas.