Historical Geography of Ancient India c5.s3.11

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c5.s3.11.1

Pāṇini in his *Aṣṭādhyāyī* mentions Prācya-Bhāratadeśa (8. 3. 75). The boundaries of Madhyadeśa or Majjhimadesa have been referred to and explained in early Brahmanical and Buddhist texts. As early as the age of the Sūtras the country of the Aryans, which is practically identical with the country later on known as Madhyadeśa, is described in the *Dharmasūtra* of Baudhāyana as lying to the east of the region where the river Sarasvatī vanishes, to the west of the Kālakavana which is identified with a tract somewhere near Prayāga,² to the north of Pāripātra and to the south of the Himalayas³ as already pointed out. The eastern boundary thus excluded not only the country now known as Bengal but also Behar which in ancient times included the entire Magadha country. The *Dharmaśāstra* of Manu calls the Āryāvarta of the Sūtras to be the Madhyadeśa. He defines it as extending from the Himalayas in the north to the Vindhyas in the south and from Vinaśana in the west to Prayāga in the east.⁴ The Āryāvarta of the Sūtras and the Madhyadeśa of Manu are, according to the *Kāvyamīmāṃsā* (p. 93), known as Antarvedī which extends up to Benaras in the east. The eastern boundary of the Madhyadeśa gradually expanded itself with the progress of time so as to include places which acquired sanctity within the Brahmanical fold. The boundaries of the Buddhist Majjhimadesa as given in the *Mahāvagga* (Vol. V, pp.

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12-13), may be described as having extended in the east to the town of Kajaṅgala (identified with Ka-chu-wen-ki-lo of Yuan Chwang) beyond which was the city of Mahāsāla; in the south-east to the river Salalavatī (Śarāvatī); in the south to the town of Śatakarṇika; in the west to the Brāhmaṇa district of Thūna (identified with Sthānīśvara); in the north to the Usīradhaja mountain (identified with Usīragiri, a mountain to the north of Kaṅkhal, Hardwar). The Divyāvadāna (pp. 21-22), however, extends the eastern boundary of the Majjhimadesa still further to the east so as to include Puṇḍravardhana which in ancient times included Varendra, roughly identical with north Bengal. The other boundaries as given in the Divyāvadāna are identical with those as in the Mahāvagga. Madhya-deśa, which is mentioned in the Belāva copper-plate of Bhojavarman and the Barrackpore copper-plate of Vijayasena (N. G. Majumdar, Inscriptions of Bengal, III, 16ff.), is, according to Aśvaghoṣa, said to have been situated between the Himalayas and the Pāripātra mountain which formed the southern boundary line of the Madhyadeśa (Saundaranandakāvya, II, v. 62). The four boundaries of the Uttarāpatha are nowhere mentioned in the Brahmanical or Buddhist texts. According to the Brahmanical tradition recorded in the Kāvyamīmāṃsā the Uttarāpatha or northern India lay to the western side of Pṛthudaka (Pṛthudakātparataḥ Uttarāpathaḥ).

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The Brahmanical definition of Āryāvarta excludes the greater portion of the land of the Ṛgvedic Aryans, which, however, is included in the Uttarāpatha. The entire Indus Valley, which was the cradle of the Ṛgvedic culture and civilization, is included in the Uttarāpatha according to the Kāvyamīmāṃsā. The Dharmasūtras of Vasiṣṭha and Baudhāyana and the Dharmaśāstra of Manu point out that the Uttarāpatha lies to the west of the place where the river Sarasvatī disappears. The Buddhist northern division is also to be located to the west of the Brāhmaṇa district of Thūna or Thāneśwar. The Uttarāpatha mentioned in the Hāthigumphā Inscription of Khāravela probably signifies the region including Mathurā in its south-eastern extension up to Magadha. The Uttarāpatha may be supposed to have been originally a great trade-route—the northern high road, so to say, which extended from Sāvatthī to Takkasilā in Gandhāra. It is not at all improbable that the Uttarāpatha in Pali literature might have also signified the entire northern India from Aṅga in the east to Gandhāra in the north-west and from the Himalaya in the north to the Vindhyas in the south. Bāṇabhaṭṭa, the author of the Harṣacarita, seems to include within Uttarāpatha the western part of the Uttara Pradeśa, the Punjab and the North-Western Frontier Provinces of India and Pakistan.