Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c11.18

c11.18

Ptolemy¹ mentions the five estuaries of the river Ganges and says, "All the region about the mouths of the Ganges is occupied by the Gangaridae with the following city—Gange, the royal city (i.e. the capital of the country)." It is clear from this that the Gangaridae or Gangetic people received their name from there chief city called Gange, apparently named after the river Ganges. The *Periplus* (para. 63) however applies the name Ganges not only to the river and a city standing on the bank of its principal mouth but also to the country, of which the city was apparently the capital. This book says about the country called Ganges that 'there is a river near it called the Ganges' and that 'on its bank is a market-town which has the same name as the river Ganges'. The principal product of this country is stated to have been the Gangetic muslin which reminds us not only of the world-wide celebrity of the Dacca muslin in the medieval age but also of the *dukūla*, *kauśika*, *patrorṇa* and *prāvara* mentioned in the *Sabhāparvan* of the *Mahābhārata* as presents made to Yudhiṣṭhira by the Vaṅgas, Kaliṅgas, Tāmaliptas and Puṇḍras of Eastern India.² But a people called Gāṅga or Gāṅgeya inhabiting Lower Bengal and having their capital at a city called Gaṅgā (Greek *Gange* or *Ganges*) is not known from ancient Indian literature. This powerful people, known to foreign writers from the fourth century B.C. to the second century A. D., were apparently known to the Indians by a different name. Curiously enough Kālidāsa, who flourished in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., locates the Vaṅga people, well-known in ancient Indian literature, exactly in the same region where the Gangaridae or Gangetic people are placed by the early European writers. Canto IV (verses 36-37) of his *Raghuvamśa* describes how Raghu defeated the Vaṅgas in a naval battle and raised pillars of victory in what is called *Gaṅgā-sroto-ntara* no doubt in the land of the defeated people. The expression *Gaṅgā-sroto-ntareshu* has been explained by the celebrated commentator Mallinātha as *Gaṅgāyāḥ srotasām pravāhānām=antareṣu dvīpeṣu*.³ Thus the country of the Vaṅgas is located by Kālidāsa in the deltaic region of Southern Bengal, which is intersected by the mouths of the river Ganges. This further proves that the Vaṅga people were identical with the Gangaridae who, according to the Greco-Roman writers, lived in the region about the mouths of the Ganges and had their chief city about the confluence of the Ganges and the Bay of Bengal. The modern representative of this ancient city seems to be the holy place at the junction of the Gaṅgā and the Sāgara, called Sāgara or Gaṅgā-sāgara. The name Gaṅgā, suggested by the early Greco-Roman writers, may be regarded as an eka-deśa of the name Gaṅgā-sāgara.¹ The name Vaṅga, originally applied to the wide areas of Southern Bengal, came in the medieval age to be confined to the eastern parts of that region together with the adjoining areas. But later the name came to be used to indicate the whole of Bengal.