Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c15.9

c15.9

The people called Gangaridae is usually located in Bengal. They therefore represented one of the various tribal elements constituting the so-called Prācya people. The separate mention of the Gangaridae and the Prasii (who apparently included the Gangaridae) indicates the importance of the former among different elements of the Prācya people under the Nandas and Mauryas (who may have belongs to that tribe) in the fourth and third centuries B. C. The name Gangaridae is sometimes taken as a Greek corruption of Sanskrit *Gaṅgā-rāṣṭra*, *Gaṅgā-rāḍha* or *Gaṅgā-hṛdaya*. The unsoundness of these suggestions is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the word Gangaridae in the plural is derived from the base *Gange* or *Ganges*⁴ as Achaemenidae (the Achaemenians) from Achaemenes and Sasanidae (the Sasanians) from *Sasan*.⁵ The name of the people is therefore actually Gange or Ganges and not Gangaridae which simply means the Ganges or Gangian people. That the correct form of the name of this people was Ganges is certain since, as will be shown below, it is found in the *Periplus of the Erythraean Sea* as the name of its habitat. The particular area of Bengal that was inhabited by the Gangaridae (Ganges people or Gangians) is indicated not only by the *Periplus of the Erythraean Sea* (circa 80 A.D.) but very definitely also by the *Geography* of Ptolemy (circa 140 A. D.).