Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c15.55

c15.55

A number of medieval Sanskrit works such as the *Gaṅgāvākyāvalī*, attributed to the Maithila writer Vidyāpati (circa 1375-1450), and the *Tirthacintāmaṇi* of Maithila Vācaspati-miśra (*circa* 1425-80), which is divided into five Prakāśas, *viz.* Prayāga, Puruṣottama (Purī), Gaṅgā, Gayā and Vārāṇasī and deals with topics like the purpose of pilgrimage, its preliminaries, rites to be performed at the *tīrthas*, subsidiary holy places at the principal *tīrthas*, etc., make prominent mention of the Gaṅgāsāgara *tīrtha*. The most valuable information about the religious and monastic establishment at Gaṅgāsāgara, one of the greatest and oldest Indian *tīrtha*, is however found in the *Tirthasāra* composed by the Bengali writer Bhavadeva Nyāyālaṅkāra in Śaka 1651 (1729 A.D.). This work shows that, as late as the first half of the eighteenth century, considerable parts of the old city existed and that people flocked to the *tīrtha* with a desire to touch the feet of Pitāmaha (Brahman), to have a bath in the waters of the Mandākinī (Gaṅgā on her way to Pātāla) and to worship the images of Mādhava (Viṣṇu) named after an ancient local king of that name, Amaraśaṅkara (Śiva), Kapila (founder of the Sāṅkhya system of Indian philosophy, mythologically represented as a sage indirectly responsible for the digging up of the beds of the oceans by the sons of Sagara as well as for the descent of the Gaṅgā on the earth and regarded as an *Avatāra* of Viṣṇu), Skanda-Kārttikeya and Hari (Viṣṇu).¹