The Geography of the Puranas c7.s2: The World of the Rāmāyaṇa

The Geography of the Purāṇas c7.s2

Language: English

The World of the Rāmāyaṇa

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of them north of it. Again four important ranges are supposed to be west of Bhārata and two on the east.

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4. Kūṭa Sālmali is located to the east of Bhārata.

The Mahābhārata, as we possess it in three recensions,⁵ cannot be designated correctly as an epic poem. It is a gigantic mass of compositions by various authors on various dates extending over several centuries arranged in eighteen books or parvas with a supplement called the Harivaṃśa, which may be reckoned as the nineteenth book. The number of ślokas exceeds 100,000, while the Harivaṃśa contains over 16,000. It is virtually an encyclopædia of knowledge and moral teachings, and in its own words, contains ‘the essence of the four Vedas’.

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The geographical matter contained in the Mahābhārata is immense. It is perhaps the only great work which deals directly with geographical details, and not incidentally as other works. In the ninth chapter of the Bhīṣma Parva, Sañjaya gives a general description of India consisting of long lists of countries, ‘nations’, mountains and rivers. Again there are descriptions of certain routes which are valuable; for though the distance is hardly ever mentioned, the direction and reference to known places enable one to locate approximately the unknown. Besides, the Mahābhārata mentions in the Ādiparva the twelve years’ sojourn of Arjuna, in the Sabhāparva the conquest of the ‘four quarters’ by the four brothers of Yudhiṣṭira; in the Vanaparva, an account of the Tīrthas and Pāṇḍava’s pilgrimage and in the Aśvamedhaparva, Arjuna's expedition through various countries. The Udyogaparva and the parvas describing the war, mention almost all the Indian people siding with the one party or the other. Another important section forms part of the Sabhāparva which deals with the presents made by different kings and peoples to Yudhiṣṭira and describes the natural and commercial products of different regions of India and some of the adjacent lands.

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To visualise the evolution of the Purāṇic world map it would be necessary to reconstruct a diagram of the world according to the Mahābhārata as we did in the case of the Rāmāyaṇa (Fig. 2). The diagram so constructed shows that it provided the blueprint on which the Purāṇas superimposed their ideas and improved. The two diagrams clearly show that the Rāmāyaṇa laid the foundation, the Mahābhārata reoriented it and the Purāṇas enlarged and perfected it⁶. The Purāṇas practically assign similar names and location to all the mountains, varṣas, rivers and oceans. They had only to rearrange and add details of the different regions of the world so conceived and complete the picture of the surface of the earth.

Linked texts (3)

Mahābhārata — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Harivaṃśa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Vālmīkirāmāyaṇa — Vālmīki, Sanskrit