The Geography of the Puranas c7.s4.30

c7.s4.30

In its description of Sudarśana¹ (evidently equivalent to Jambū Dvīpa) the Kumbhakonam edition of the Mahābhārata (6.5.17) used the words: 'Dviramasas tu tataḥ Plakṣa dviramsaḥ Sālmalir maham, dviramsaḥ Fippalastasya dviramsas ca Kuśo maham.' The Bombay and Calcutta editions omit the first line and read: 'Dviramse Pippalas tatra dviramse ca Saśa maham.' In 6.6.2 all three editions read Pippala and Saśa. In 6.6.13 all three editions have Bhadrāśva, Ketumāla, Jambū Dvīpa and Uttarakuru. Noteworthy is the intrusion of Plakṣa in the Kumbhakonam edition, which is mentioned nowhere else in the Epic except in this passage of the Kumbhakonam edition. The context does not support the Kumbhakonam reading, but these particular names would hardly have been used, even in a late interpolation after they had become crystallised as the names of concentric dvīpas. They are named here as parts of Jambū Dvīpa, not as independent dvīpas. If the line is an interpolation, it seems to come from a period earlier than that of the Purāṇic geography.