The Geography of the Puranas c7.s1.24

c7.s1.24

The Rāmāyaṇa assumes that the entire earth belonged to the kings of the Solar race. In his reply to Vāli, Rāma says: 'The earth inclusive of even the hills and the forests belongs to the Ikṣvākus', but their sovereignty was evidently only a hegemony and not a unitary government. Very possibly it was hegemony only over some parts of India and adjacent lands, since Daśaratha explains this to Kaikeyī (in Ayodhyā, X, 381) and then proceeds to specify various kingdoms in India such as Sindhu, Sauvīra, Saurāṣṭra, Dakṣiṇāpatha, Vaṅga, Aṅga, Magadha, Matsya, Kāśī and Kosala. During the Aśwamedha sacrifice performed by Daśaratha, Vasiṣṭha asks Sumantra to bring all the righteous potentates in India (Bala, XIII, 18). He refers not only to the northern Indian kings of Mithilā, Kāśī, Kekaya and Aṅga, Sindhu, Sauvīra and Saurāṣṭra but also to some of the kings in South India. When Daśaratha calls an assembly of kings and commoners to consider the appointment of a yuvarāja (heir-apparent) he invites the kings of the east, north, west and south (Ayodhyā, III, 24). When Sugrīva sends four parties to search the four quarters for Sītā, we find in those descriptions a detailed delineation of the rivers of India from the Gaṅgā to the Tāmraparṇī and of various kingdoms in Northern as well as Southern India (Canto XLI of Kiṣkindha Kāṇḍa). There is a reference even to Kāvata which was the capital of the Pāṇḍya kingdom. In it we have also references to the lands beyond the Indian sub-continent, for instance, to Ceylon (Laṅkā), Jāvā (Yavadwīpa), Borneo (Suvarṇarūpyaka) as well as to China and Tibet (China and Padma China) and Bālhika, etc. (Uttarakāṇḍa). These seem to be interpolations of a later period. More valuable details are found in the description of journeys to different parts of the country when Viśwāmitra took Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa from Ayodhyā (Oudh) to Siddhāśrama and then to Mithilā (North Bihar and Tirhut); the Epic gives a vivid account of the country traversed by them. The description of journey made by Vasiṣṭha's messengers who were sent to fetch Bharata and Satrughna and that of the journey made by the latter from Girivraja in the Kekaya country (Punjab) to Ayodhyā reveal many interesting geographical features of the north-western regions of India. The narrative of Rāma's journey in exile from Ayodhyā to Citrakūṭa (60 miles south-west of Allahabad) and through the Daṇḍaka forest to Pampā, Kiṣkindhā and Laṅkā and finally the account of various countries of the four quarters of India where the 'vānara' chiefs were sent in sarch of Sītā (in Kiṣkindhā Khāṇḍa) bring out the geography of practically the whole of India and adjacent lands. Again, more facts about the South Indian kingdoms are revealed by the account of Rāvaṇa's car flying from Laṅkā to Mārica's Āśrama. Thus a complete picture of a major part of South-Eastern Asia is presented by the Epic as conceived by Vālmīki.⁴