Historical Geography of Ancient India c5.s3.11.2

c5.s3.11.2

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).