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Historical Geography of Ancient India c5.s2: II. Different Names of India

Historical Geography of Ancient India c5.s2

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II. Different Names of India

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Bounded on the north by stupendous mountain ranges and on the other three sides by the mighty seas and ocean, India constitutes a distinct geographical unit. The vastness of the country with its infinite variety of fauna and flora, races and languages, religions and culture justly entitles it to be called a great sub-continent. The remote parts of this great country revealed themselves to the observers and explorers of ancient times only gradually and by stages. It is for this reason therefore that we do not meet with any comprehensive term to designate the whole country in the earliest records. The word ‘India’ is derived from the name of the river Sindhu or the Indus.¹ The Chinese also knew the ancient name of India as Shin-tuh or Sindhu.² In the *Ṛgveda* (VIII. 24. 27) it is referred to as Sapta Sindhavas or ‘the Seven Rivers’. The designation doubtless corresponds to the term Hapta Hindu found in the *Avestan Vendīdād*.³ In the famous inscriptions of Darius at Persepolis and Naksh-i-Rustam the entire territory watered by the Indus and its affluents is styled simply Hi(n)du.⁴ Herodotus calls it ‘India’ which was the twentieth division of the Persian empire. It should, however, be noted that the Vedic Sapta Sindhavah and the Persian Hi(n)du corresponded only to a particular part of India lying to the north-west. But ‘India’ of Herodotus was already acquiring a wider denotation, for the Greek historian speaks of the Indians who ‘are situated very far from the Persians, towards the south, and were never subject to Darius’.⁵

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¹ Cambridge History of India, I, p. 324.

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² Law, Geography of Early Buddhism, p. xvi; Legge, Fahien, p. 26.

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³ Cambridge History of India, I, p. 324.

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⁴ Ibid., p. 335.

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⁵ Raychaudhuri, Studies in the Indian Antiquities, p. 81.

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The exploration of practically the whole country had been completed in or about the fourth century B.C. The literature of the period, both Greek and Indian, shows acquaintance not only with the realm of the Pāṇḍyas in the south, but also with the island of Tāmraparṇi or Ceylon.⁶ The people felt the necessity of a comprehensive term for the territory extending from the Himalayas in the north to the sea in the south. The term was Jambudvīpa which was then used. In Buddhist literature Jambudvīpa figures as one of the four Mahādvīpas or the four great continents including India with Mt. Sineru (Sumeru) in the centre of them. A portion of Jambudvīpa known as the Aṅgadvīpa was inhabited by the Mlecchas according to the Vāyupurāṇa (48. 14–18).

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⁶ Bhandarkar, Carmichael Lectures (1918), pp. 6ff.; Cambridge History of India, Vol. I, pp. 423ff.

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Childers (Pali Dictionary, p. 165) points out that when opposed to Sihaladīpa, Jambudvīpa means the continent of India.¹ It is difficult to be definite on this point. In Sanskrit Buddhist texts we have references to Jambudvīpa.² The Minor Rock Edict No. 1 of Aśoka mentions Jambudvīpa³ which denotes the vast country ruled by that great emperor. In the Epics and Purāṇas Jambudvīpa is described as one of the seven concentric islands, encircled by seven samudras.⁴ Of these seven islands the Jambudvīpa is the most alluded to in various sources and is one which is in its narrower sense identified with Bhāratavarṣa⁵ or the Indian peninsula.

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¹ Law, Geography of Early Buddhism, p. xvi; Geographical Essays, p. 5.

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² Mahāvastu, III, 67; Lalitavistara, Ch. XII; Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā, 78th Pallava, 9.

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³ R. K. Mookerjee, Aśoka, p. 110.

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⁴ Law, Geography of Early Buddhism, p. xvi; Cunningham, Ancient Geography of India, p. xxxvi.

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⁵ Mahābhārata, VI. 6. 13; Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa, 37. 27–46; 43. 32.

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An interesting account of Jambudvīpa (Pali Jambudīpa) is found in Pali-Buddhist texts and commentaries. Jambudvīpa has been named after the Jambu tree. (Visuddhimagga, I, 205–206; cf. Vinaya Texts, I, 127; Aṭṭhasālinī, p. 298). According to the Papañcasūdanī, the commentary on the Majjhima Nikāya, it is called Vana or forest (Vol. II, p. 423). It is also called Sudarśanadvīpa which is said to derive its name from a tree growing in it, the branches of which extend over 1,000 yojanas. (Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa 37. 28–34; 50. 25–26; Matsya, 114. 74–75; cf. Mahābh. VI. 5. 13–15; VI. 7. 19–20). The Sineru which is the highest of the mountain peaks, was encompassed by seven celestial ranges, named Yugandhara, Īsadhara, Kāravika, Sudassana, Nemindhara, Vinataka and Assakaṇṇa. The Jambudvīpa looks like a lotus with Meru as its karṇika (pericarp of a lotus) and the varṣas or mahādvīpas, Bhadrāśva, Bhārata, Ketumāla and Uttarakuru as its four petals.⁶ Buddhaghosa, the celebrated Pali commentator, points out that Jambudīpa was 10,000 yojanas in extent and it was called Great (mahā).⁷ The five great rivers, Gaṅgā, Yamunā, Sarabhu, Aciravatī and Mahī, after watering Jambudīpa fell into the sea.⁸ The Buddha, 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 would fly from each one to the next’. According to the Sumaṅgalavilāsinī Jambudīpa had 500 islands (Vol. II, p. 449). In Jambudīpa there were pleasant parks, pleasant groves, pleasant grounds and lakes, but their number was not great. Moreover, there were many steep precipitous cliffs, unfordable rivers, inaccessible mountains and dense thickets of stakes and thorns.⁹ Gold was collected from the whole of Jambudīpa.¹⁰ Aśoka built 84,000 monasteries in the whole of Jambudīpa.¹¹ The Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika systems of philosophy, arithmetic, music, medicine, the four Vedas, the Purāṇas and the Itihāsas, astronomy, magic, spells, the art of war, poetry and conveyancing were taught here.¹² There were disputants here in arts and sciences.¹³ The importance of Jambudīpa was very great as it was often visited by Gautama the Buddha besides Mahinda.¹ The people of Jambudīpa led a virtuous life according to the *Kathāvatthu* (p. 99). The whole of Jambudīpa was stirred up by Sānu, the only son of a female lay disciple who mastered the *Tripitaka*.² The *Cūḷavaṃsa* refers to the great Bo-tree at Jambudīpa (Vol. I, p. 36). There were heretics and monks here and the unruliness of the heretics was so very great that the monks stopped holding the *uposatha* ceremony for seven years.³ A dreadful famine once visited it.⁴

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⁶ Nīlakaṇṭha’s commentary on the Mahābhārata, VI. 6. 3–5; Mārkaṇḍeya, 55, 20ff.; Brahmāṇḍa, 35. 41; 44–45.

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⁷ Sumaṅgalavilāsinī, II, 429.

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⁸ Ibid., p. 17.

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⁹ Aṅg. Nik., I, 35.

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¹⁰ Papañcasūdanī, II, 123.

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¹¹ Dīpavamsa, p. 49; Visuddhimagga, I, 201.

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¹² Milinda, p. 3.

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¹³ Therīgāthā Commy., p. 87.

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¹ *Dipavaṃsa*, p. 65.

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² *Dhammapada Commy.*, IV, 25.

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³ *Mahāvaṃsa*, p. 51.

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⁴ *Dhammapada Commy.*, III, 368, 370, 374.

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Bhāratavarṣa was just one of the nine *varṣas* or countries constituting the nine main divisions of Jambudvīpa. The Jaina work *Jambuddīvapaṇṇatti* speaks of seven *varṣas* as constituent parts of Jambudvīpa. According to the Epic and Puranic authors Jambudvīpa was originally divided into seven *varṣas*. Two other *varṣas* were added later to the original seven and the total number of *varṣas* was raised to nine.⁵ Thus with the Jaina and Brahmin writers Jambudvīpa as a continent was thought of as of much wider extension than Jambudvīpa as known to the Buddhists. Among the *varṣas* of Jambudvīpa Bhāratavarṣa lay most to the south. In agreement with the Great Epic⁶ and the *Purāṇas*, the *Jambuddīvapaṇṇatti* derives the name Bhāratavarṣa from King Bharata, a descendant of Priyavrata, son of Manu Svyambhava,⁷ whose sovereignty was established over it.⁸ Bhāratavarṣa, according to Pauranic cosmology, was divided into *nava-khaṇḍas* or nine divisions ‘separated by seas and as being mutually inaccessible’.⁹ But Bhāratavarṣa, as we now know it, is not separated by seas within itself, nor are its component parts ‘mutually inaccessible’. It is not thus our India, covering present geographical area. Of the nine *khaṇḍas* eight have been shown to be divisions not of India proper. They are not so many provinces of India, but of Greater India, and are islands and countries that encircle the Indian Peninsula.¹⁰ This fact was also noted long ago by scholars like Alberuni and Abul Fazl.¹¹ The ninth *dvīpa* or *khaṇḍa*, i.e., Kumārī or Kumārikādvīpa, which is described in the *Purāṇas* to have been girt by sea (*sāgarasaṃvṛtaḥ*) and to have been inhabited by the Kirātas at its eastern extremity, and the Yavanas at its western, with the Brāhmaṇas, Kṣatriyas, Vaiśyas and Śūdras thrown within, seems to be identical with India proper.¹²

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⁵ Law, *India as described in early texts of Buddhism and Jainism*, p. 1 n; Law, *Geographical Essays*, 119ff.; Cunningham, *Ancient Geography of India*, pp. 8, 749ff.

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⁶ *Mahābh.*, Bhīṣmap., III. 41.

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⁷ *Bhāgavatapurāṇa*, XI, 2. 15ff.

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⁸ B. C. Law, *India as described in early texts of Buddhism and Jainism*, p. 14.

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⁹ Cunningham, *Ancient Geography of India*, p. 751; Law, *Geographical Essays*, p. 121; *Markandeya*, 575—nine *dvīpas*.

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¹⁰ Cunningham, *Ancient Geography of India*, Appendix I, pp. 749–754.

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¹¹ Raychaudhuri, *op. cit.*, p. 78, f.n. 4.

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¹² Law, *Geographical Essays*, p. 121.

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The early Greek writers regarded the Indus as the western boundary of India, but they knew of Indian settlements in the valley of the Kabul and its tributaries. Accordingly some regarded the Cophes, i.e., the river Kabul, as the furthest limit of India on its west.¹³ The inclusion of Yonas or Yavanas, who probably occupied the place near Kabul, and of the Gandhāras, who were located in the region comprising the modern districts of Peshawar in the North-Western Frontier Province and Rawalpindi in the Punjab, both in Pakistan, among the peoples of *Uttarāpatha* in the Great Epic and the *Purāṇas*, suggests that India at one time embraced within its boundaries not only the land lying immediately to the west of the Indus but also the north-eastern corner of the Iranian Tableland. The mango-shaped island of Ceylon,¹ which does not form part of India proper, is both geographically and culturally closely connected with it.

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¹³ McCrindle, *Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian*, p. 156.

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¹ *Amradvīpa* in the Inscription of Mahānāman, II (*C.I.I.*, Vol. III).

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