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Cunningham's Ancient Geography of India c4.s1: 1. Pioneers in this field of research.

Cunningham's Ancient Geography of India c4.s1

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English

1. Pioneers in this field of research.

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1. *Mr. Francis Wilford, Engineer.*—"A learned and laborious, but injudicious writer" (Wilson's *Hindu Theatre*, I.9) His essays—on Egypt and the Nile from the Ancient Books of the Hindus ; the Sacred Islands in the West ; etc. (*Asiatic Researches* III, IX, XIV); the Comparative Geography of India (published posthumously in 1851). His great merit was to point out the existence of Sanskrit sources of geography. His account of the Nile from Sanskrit sources enabled Lieut. J. H. Speke to discover its source. (*Speke's Discovery of the Source of the Nile*, chaps. I, V, X).

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2. *H. H. Wilson.*—In 1824 he contributed to the *Oriental Magazine* (Vol. II, p. 180) an article in which he described a Skr. MS. professing to be a section of the *Bhabishya Purâna* which elucidates the local geography of Bengal. In his translation of the *Vishnu Purâna* he commented on the Purânic geography. His *Notes on the Indica of Ctesias* was published in 1836 (Oxford). The geographical portion of his *Ariana Antiqua* (London, 1841)—an account of the coins and antiquities discovered by Mr. Masson during his travels in Afghanistan—is full and valuable.

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3. *Christian Lassen*—the encyclopædic Indologist.—(a) His *Pentapotamia Indica* (1827) gives an account of the Punjab from the "classical" sources and from the *Mahâbhârata*, the *Koshas* and other Skr. sources. (b) In the geographical section of his *Indische Alterthumskunde* (Bonn, 1843)—the very learned and exhaustive work on the antiquities of India—he described the physical features of India and gave (especially in the footnotes) whatever information he could collect from classical and Skr. sources. Though "his system of identification is based on a wrong principle" (M'Crindle's *Ptolemy*, Preface, p. vii) and hence many of his identifications are wrong (Pargiter in *J.A.S.B.*, 1895, p. 250), these works of erudition are 'precious mines of materials' utilised by later scholars.

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4. *Vivien de Saint-Martin*, the father of the geography of Ancient India.—(a) His *Etude sur la géographie et les populations primitives du Nord-ouest de l'Inde d'après les Hymnes Védiques* (Paris, 1860) is the sole work on Vedic geography. Its treatment is masterly in the extreme. But as he relied solely on M. Langlois's French translation of the *Rigveda*—"a version which does not seem altogether to have commended itself to later interpreters" (E. Thomas in *J. R. A. S.*, 1883, p. 358)—and as much Vedic research has been done since that time, it is necessary to revise this *Etude*.

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In his (b) *Etude sur la géographie Grecque et Latine de l'Inde, et en particulier sur l'Inde de Ptolémie* and (c) *Mémoire Analytique sur la carte de l'Asie centrale et de l'Inde* (appended to Vol. III of M. Julien's translation of Hwen Thsang, 1858), he critically examined the classical and the Chinese sources. "His identifications have been made with so much care and success that few places have escaped his research and most of these have escaped only because the imperfection or want of fulness in the maps of India rendered actual identifications quite impossible" (Cunningham's *A.S.R.*, II, Preface, p. 85).

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5. *Sir Alexander Cunningham*, the father of Indian archæology. A son of Allan Cunningham the poet, he came to India as a "Royal Engineer." The influence of Prinsep—"the decipherer of the early Indian Alphabets"—made him fix his eyes on the antiquities of this country. In 1861 he applied to Lord Canning to sanction an "archæological survey" which he justly showed in his letter to be the only means for the reconstruction of an account of Ancient India. He was appointed the Archæological Surveyor in January 1862; but as after a few years the post was abolished, he went home and produced *The Ancient Geography of India*, Vol. I (1871). In it he gave a summary of the results of V. de St. Martin and Lassen revised and corrected in light of his own researches and discoveries due chiefly to his *vast travels* in this country—an advantage which the earlier writers did not possess. Thus he brought to a focus the then accumulated knowledge into a single English volume which is still the work to which every student of this subject has to refer to. But it must be borne in mind that—

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(a) Cunningham (following St. Martin and Julien) gave in most cases the proposed restorations of foreign sounds as the Skr. names. Though nothing more than this could have then been possible, it is clear that such restoration of a Greek, Latin or Chinese transcript of an Indian proper name could not always be identical with the original one. Hence one ought to search for the original names from Indian sources and there is no doubt that they would eventually be found out. Thus Pânini furnishes *Kâpisî* (IV. 2. 99), *Sânkala* (IV. 2. 75), *Varnu* (IV. 2. 103 ; IV. 3. 93), *Parvata* (IV. 2. 143), etc.—the Skr. forms of Kapisene, Sangala, Fa-la-na, Po-lo-fo-ta, etc. [*I.A.* Vol. I, p. 21]. *Kâsikâ* supplies Ayomukhî (A-ye-mu-ka'). *Râjataranginî* mentions *Udabhândapura* (Wu-to-ka-han-cha). *Vinaya Texts* (ii, 38) and *Jâtaka* (iv, 30) supply *Kajangala* (Cunningham's *Kajughira*). Inscription No. 14 of *E.I.* VI shows that the Skr. form of Kongyu-to is *Kongoda* and not *Konyodha* as given by Cunningham.

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(b) In utilising the accounts of Fa Hian and Hwen Thsang—undoubtedly his chief sources—he took 6 *li* of Hwen Thsang as one mile and one *yojana* of Fa Hian to be 6·75 miles. But later researches have shed much light on this subject causing a scrutinization of his work.

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(c) Cunningham usually says that Hwen Thsang made mistakes when his evidence is not in accord with what he (Cunningham) wishes to prove. It is very easy to say that Hwen Thsang meant East when he wrote West, or that instead of a thousand he meant a hundred. But one must not do this without any strong proof.

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(d) He estimated Ptolemy's geography to be of much value (His Preface, p. vii). But it will be shown to be otherwise.

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(e) Cunningham himself has, in his voluminous reports (*A.S.R.*) in 23 volumes (the first two only of which were written, though not published, before the publication of his *Geography*), embodying his researches occupying a period of more than a quarter of a century, abandoned many of the identifications stated in his *Geography*. And the researches of various other scholars—M'Crindle, Stein, Raverty, Foucher, Fleet, V. Smith, Watters, to name only a few of them—have shown that not only are many of his identifications doubtful but that some are positively wrong.

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6. *H. Yule.*—His annotations on Marco Polo and his map of Ancient India from classical sources in Dr. Smith's *Atlas of Ancient Geography* (1875) are valuable.

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7. *Dr. M'Crindle,* the translator of Megasthenes, Arrian, Strabo, Periplus, Ptolemy, and other classical writers on India, gave, in his geographical notes a summary of the conclusions of the above writers.

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8. *Mr. Pargiter.*—His *Geography of Râma's Exile* (J.R.A.S., 1894), Eastern Indian Nations (J.A.S.B., 1895), Eng. translation of Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa (Published by the Asiatic Society, Bengal), Nations at the time of the Great War (J.R.A.S., 1908), and Ancient Indian Historical Traditions (Oxford, 1922) have elucidated Epic and Puranic Geography.

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9. Nandalal Dey's Geographical Dictionary of Ancient and Mediæval India. (A dictionary and not a systematic treatise. Grounds of identifications and references are generally not given). A second edition of it is in course of publication as an appendix to Indian Antiquary.

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10 Prof. F. Pullé's Cartography of India in the Studi Italiani di Filologia Indo-Iranica, Vols. IV & V. is a valuable contribution.

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