Historical Geography of Ancient India c5.s2.28

c5.s2.28

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