The Geography of the Puranas c7.s4.44

c7.s4.44

(v) When dealing with ancient geography, particularly when traditions go back to a period thousands of years before the Christian era, it is necessary to visualise the climate, vegetation, topographic details and population distribution which existed in those times and which have been changing since then. Changes in climate, river courses, their water content and the nature of their sediments, the filling up of depressions, changes in the level of the land or the sea, deposition of sand over large areas and erosion of minor relief features effect the vegetation cover and have to be taken into account before one attempts to reconstruct the world map of the ancients. Human groups and their distribution react and respond quickly to these changes and the 'human' regions (or dwīpas) with which the Purāṇas are chiefly concerned are bound to change in size and importance.