Historical Geography of Ancient India c7.393

c7.393

Mūlaka.—The country of the Mūlakas seems to have been mentioned as Maulika in Varāhamihira’s Bṛhat-saṃhitā (XIX, 4). The Mūlakas were a small tribe very closely related with the Aśmakas of the south. According to Bhaṭṭasvāmī, the commentator of Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra, their country was identical with Mahārāṣṭra. In the Vāyu Purāṇa (Ch. 88, 177-8) the Mūlakas and the Aśmakas are said to be scions of the same Ikṣvāku family. Mūlaka, the originator of the Mūlaka tribe, is described in the Garuda Purāṇa (Ch. 142, 34) as the son of king Aśmaka, a descendant of Bhagiratha. The Godāvarī formed the border line between the territories of the Assaka and Aḷaka or Mūlaka (B. C. Law, Geography of Early Buddhism, p. 21; Paramatthajotikā on the Suttanipāta, p. 581). Opinions differ as to the peoples of these two countries. The Pauranic tradition as recorded in the Viṣṇudharmottara (Pt. I, Ch. 9) proves that they were different. According to the Sona-Nanda-Jātaka (Jātaka, V, 317) the Assaka country is associated with Avanti. According to D. R. Bhandarkar (Carmichael Lectures, 1918, pp. 53-54) the contiguity mentioned in the Sonananda-Jātaka can only be explained, if it is assumed that in later times Mūlaka was included in Assaka, and that the latter country was thus contiguous with Avanti. As late as the second quarter of the 2nd century A.D. we find the Mūlakas distinguished from the Aśmakas in the Nasik Inscription of Gautamī. For further details vide B. C. Law, *Indological Studies*, I, 49ff.