Geography of Early Buddhism c10.3

c10.3

The Buddhist tradition as to the northern boundary of the Dakkhiṇāpatha is, however, a bit different. The Mahāvagga and the Divyāvadāna seem to record that the Dakkhina janapada lay to the south of the town of Satakannika, a locality which has not yet definitely been identified (see ante: Boundaries of Majjhimadesa). The Vinaya Piṭaka, however, uses the term Dakkhiṇāpatha in a much narrower sense (Vol. I, pp. 195, 196; Vol. II, p. 298) and refers to it as a region confined to a remote settlement of the Aryans on the Upper Godāvarī. Buddhaghosa, the celebrated Buddhist commentator, defines Dakkhiṇāpatha or the Deccan as the tract of land lying to the south of the Ganges (SMV., I, p. 265) and was the same as Dakkhina Janapada. As we have already pointed out that from the prologue of Book V of the Sutta Nipāta, it appears that the Dakkhiṇāpatha lent its name to the region through which it passed—i.e., the whole tract of land lying to the south of the Ganges and to the north of the river Godāvarī being known (according to Buddhaghosa) as Dakkhiṇāpatha or the Deccan proper (cf. Vinaya-Mahāvagga, V, 13; Vinaya-Cullavagga, XII, 1).