Historical Geography of Ancient India c5.s2.37

c5.s2.37

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.