Historical Geography of Ancient India c7.37

c7.37

*Assaka* or *Aśmaka* Country.—The Assaka or Aśmaka country is mentioned in the *Suttanipāta* (P.T.S., p. 190) as situated on the bank of the river Godāvarī immediately to the south of Patiṭṭhāna (v. 977). Dr. Bhandarkar points out that according to the *Suttanipāta* a Brahmin guru called Bāvarī having left the Kośala country settled near a village on the Godāvarī in the Assaka territory in the Dakṣiṇāpatha (*Carmichael Lectures*, 1918, pp. 4, 53, f.n. 5). Rhys Davids points out that Aśmaka was situated immediately north-west of Avanti. The settlement on the Godāvarī, according to him, was a later colony (*Buddhist India*, pp. 27-28). Asanga in his *Sūtrālaṅkāra* mentions an Aśmaka country in the basin of the Indus.