Historical Geography of Ancient India c5.s1.7

c5.s1.7

To present a complete geographical picture of India in the Buddha’s time and later, Pali literature is undoubtedly the most important. From about the time of the Buddha to about the time of Aśoka the great literature of the early Buddhists is certainly the main source of the historical and geographical information of ancient India, supplemented by Jaina and Brahmanical sources here and there. Texts or narratives of purely historical or geographical nature are altogether absent in the literature of the early Buddhists, and whatever historical or geographical information can be gathered is incidental and very much reliable. Thus for the history of the rise and vicissitudes as well as for the geographical situation and other details of the sixteen Mahājanapadas, the most important chapter of the Indian history and geography before and after the time of the Buddha, the Pali Aṅguttara Nikāya is the main source of information which is supplemented by the Jaina Bhagavatīsūtra and the Karṇaparva of the Mahābhārata. For later periods when we have abundant epigraphical and archaeological sources and literary sources, too, which are mainly Brahmanical, as well as the accounts of the classical geographers and the itineraries of the Chinese pilgrims, the geographical information contained in Pali and Sanskrit Buddhist literature is considerably important.² Some geographical information may also be available from Tibetan texts.