The Geography of the Puranas c8.98

c8.98

The Purāṇas also mention, though cursorily, the lakes of the northern Siberian plains (i.e., of Uttara Kuru). There are twelve of these lakes, some of which according to them are like oceans. The natural inference is that the authors of the Purāṇas had an idea of the big northern lakes, i.e., the Balkhash and the Baikal, to which they give the common name ‘Vaijaya.’ Most probably their ‘Vaijaya’ was the Baikal of modern times. Further details of those regions need not detain us here since they will be discussed in the relevant chapters which follow.