Geography of Early Buddhism c7.s1.17

c7.s1.17

Assaka represents the Sanskrit Aśmaka (or Aśvaka) which has been mentioned by Asaṅga in his Sūtrālaṅkāra as a country in the basis of the Indus. Asaṅga’s Aśmaka seems, therefore, to be identical with the Kingdom of Assakenus of the Greek writers which lay to the east of the Saraswatī at a distance of about 25 miles from the sea on the Swat Valley. The Aśmakas are also mentioned by Pāṇini (IV, I, 173). They are placed in the north-west by the authors of the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa and the Brihat-saṃhitā. It was a branch of this people of the north-west that probably settled in the territory known in the Aṅguttara Nikāya as Assaka Mahājanapada whose capital was Potana or Potali, the Paudanya of the Mahābhārata (1, 77, 47). In early Pāli literature Assaka has been distinguished from Muḷaka which lay to its north, but has always been associated with Avanti which lay immediately to the north-east. At the time of the Buddha, the Assakas had another settlement on the Godāvarī (S. Nip., V, 977) as already mentioned. This is probably referred to in the Cullakāliṅga Jātaka and in the Hāthigumphā inscription. Bhaṭṭaswāmi, the commentator of Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra identifies Aśmaka, the contiguous territory of Avanti, with Mahārāṣṭra. Practically speaking, therefore, the Assaka country of the Buddhists, whether it be identical with Mahārāṣṭra or located on the Godāvarī, lay outside the pale of the Madhyadeśa.