Geography of Early Buddhism c6.7

c6.7

It will be noticed that in the earlier canons and texts as well as in those later texts and canons that speak of earlier times, Majjhimadeśa is the country *par excellence* that is elaborately noticed. Its towns and cities, parks and gardens, lakes and rivers have been mentioned time and again. Its villages have not even been neglected. Repetitions of the same information are often irritating and it seems that the Middle Country was almost exclusively the world in which the early Buddhists confined themselves. That was, in fact, what happened. It was in an eastern district of the Madhyadeśa that Gotama became the Buddha, and the drama of his whole life was staged on the plains of the Middle Country. He travelled independently or with his disciples from city to city, and village to village moving as if it were within a circumscribed area. The demand near home was so great and insistent that he had no occasion during his life time to stir outside the limits of the Middle Country. And as early Buddhism is mainly concerned with his life and propagation of his teaching, early Buddhist literature, therefore, abounds with geographical information mainly of the Majjhimadeśa within the limits of which the first converts to the religion confined themselves. The border countries and kingdoms were undoubtedly known and were oftentimes visited by Buddhist monks, but those of the distant south or north or north-west seem to have been known only by names handed down to them by traditions. Thus the Mahājanapadas of Gandhāra and Kamboja were known, but they hardly had any direct and detailed knowledge about them. Of the south, they hardly knew any country beyond Assaka, Māhissati (Avanti Dakshināpatha), Kalinga and Vidarbha. But with the progress of time as Buddhism spread itself beyond the boundaries of the Middle Country, and its priests and preachers were out for making new converts, their geographical Jambudīpa is 10,000 yojanas in extent and it is called mahā or great (Smv., II, p. 429). Of these 10,000 yojanas, 4,000 are, according to Spence Hardy, covered by the ocean, 3,000 by the forest of the range of the Himalayan mountains and 3,000 are inhabited by men (Manual of Buddhism, p. 4). He further points out that the five great rivers, Gaṅgā, Yamunā, Aciravatī, Sarabhū and Mahī, after watering Jambudīpa, fall into the sea (Ibid., p. 17). Jambudīpa has 500 islands (Ibid., p. 449). In the earlier ages, there were 199,000 kingdoms in Jambudīpa, in the middle ages, at one time, 84,000 and at another, 63,000; and in more recent ages about a hundred. In the time of Gotama Buddha this continent contained 9,600,000 towns, 9,900,000 seaports, and 56 treasure cities (Ibid., p. 4). The Dīgha Nikāya of the Suttapiṭaka narrates that the Exalted One, while relating the Cakkavattisīhanāda Suttanta, predicted thus: ‘Jambudīpa will be mighty and prosperous, the villages, towns and royal cities will be so close that a cock could fly from each one to the next.’ This Jambudīpa—one might think it a ‘Waveless Deep’—will be pervaded by mankind even as a jungle is by reeds and rushes. In this Continent of India there will be 84,000 towns with Ketumatī (Benares), the royal city, at their head (DN., III, p. 75). We learn from the Aṅguttara Nikāya that in Jambudīpa trifling in number are the pleasant parks, the pleasant groves, the pleasant grounds and lakes, while more numerous are the steep precipitous places, unfordable rivers, dense thickets of stakes and thorns and inaccessible mountains (Vol. I, p. 35). We are informed by the Papañcasūdanī that gold is collected from the whole of Jambudīpa (II, p. 123). The Dīpavaṃsa records that Asoka built 84,000 monasteries in 84,000 towns of Jambudīpa (p. 49). This is supported by the Visuddhimagga which states that Asoka, the Great King, put up 84,000 monasteries in the whole of Jambudīpa (Vol. I, p. 201).