Geography of Early Buddhism c8.2

c8.2

Nowhere in Brahmanical or Buddhist literature is mentioned the four boundaries of the Uttarāpatha. According to the Brahmanical tradition as recorded in the Kāvyamīmāṃsā (p. 93), the Uttarāpatha or Northern India lay to the other, i.e., the western side of Pṛthudaka (Pṛthudakāt parataḥ Uttarāpathaḥ) or Pehoa, about 14 miles west of Thāneswar. Other Brahmanical sources, e.g., the Dharmasūtras of Vasiṣṭha, Baudhāyana and Manu, purport to furnish practically the same evidence, i.e., the Uttarāpatha lies to the west of the place where the Saraswatī disappears. But our knowledge of the eastern boundary of Uttarāpatha is derived only in connection with the boundaries of the Madhyadeśa as given in the texts referred to above. There is nowhere any independent evidence of the boundaries of Uttarāpatha as such. It is interesting to note that the Brahmanical definition of Āryāvarta excludes the greater portion of the land of the Rigvedic Aryans, which, however, is included in the Uttarāpatha. Thus the entire Indus valley which was the cradle of the Rgvedic culture and civilisation is practically outside the pale of Manu's Madhyadeśa or Baudhāyana's Āryāvarta, but is included in Uttarāpatha according to the Kāvyamīmāṃsā.