Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c19.1

c19.1

Caurāsī as a geographical unit indicating a group of 84 villages is known from different parts of India. There is a group of villages called Bhināikī Caurāsī near Ajmer in Rajasthan and it is probably mentioned as Caturaśīti in the fragmentary Barli inscription¹ of the first century B. C. Caurāsī is also a Pargana in the Mirzapur District of U.P., while Corāsī (Caurāsī) is a Subdivision of the Surat District of Bombay. There is a village called Caurāsī in the Sadar Subdivision of the Purī District of Orissa. This village likewise seems to have been originally the headquarters of a geographical and administrative unit consisting of 84 villages. That it had some importance in the past is possibly indicated by its yielding of a copper-plate inscription of the Bhauma-Kara monarch Śivakara II who flourished about the end of the ninth century A.D.² It seems that there are other areas similarly called Caurāsī in different parts of the country. Caturaśīti, the Sanskrit form of Caurāsī, is found in a number of ancient Indian records.