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Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c20: XVI. Gonarda

Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c20

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XVI. Gonarda

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¹ [This is a translation of an article in French, entitled Gonarda, le berceau du Gonardiya, by Sylvain Lévi, which was published in the Sir Asutosh Mookerjee Silver Jubilee Volumes, Vol. III (Orientalia), Part ii, pp. 197-205.]

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The *Pārāyaṇa* incorporated in the Pali *Suttanipāta* is one of the most ancient Buddhist works. The parallel writings, attested by frequent mention, have disappeared. But the Pali text, guaranteed as it is by two commentaries, viz. the *Mahāniddesa* and the *Cullaniddesa* which too are very ancient, has an incontestable value. In the account which sets forth the introduction to the collection, the Brāhmaṇa Bāvari, emigrated from the ‘charming city of the Kosalas’ (*i.e.* Śrāvastī), comes to settle himself ‘in the country of Assaka, in the vicinity of Muḷaka,² on the banks of the Godhāvarī’. He sends his disciples in a mission to the Buddha at his place of birth, *i.e.* Sāvatthi of the Kosalas. The poet sums up in three verses (1011-1013) the steps in their route : “Patiṭṭhāna of Muḷaka ; then the city of Māhissatī ; also Ujjenī and Gonaddha; Vedisā ; Vana-savhaya ; Kosambī ; and also Sāketa ; and the big city of Sāvatthi, Setavya, Kapilavatthu ; and the city of Kusīnārā ; and Pāvā ; Bhoga-nagara ; the Magadhan city of Vesālī and the Pāsāṇaka Cetiya.”

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² [The name may also be spelt as Mūlaka.]

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The itinerary deserves the honour of a careful study. Here, however, I shall only occupy myself with the intermediate step between Ujjenī and Vedisā, two perfectly definite localities. The one is still now Ujjain to the north of Indore, lat. 23° 11' 10'' N., and long. 75° 51' 45'' E.; the other is Besnagar very near Bhilsa, lat. 23° 31' 35'' N., and long. 77° 55' 39' E. The *Pārāyaṇa* places the city of Gonaddha between these two points.

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The catalogue of the Yakṣas in the *Mahāmāyūrī*³ follows an exactly identical order : “at Avanti the Yakṣa is Priyadarśana ; at Gonardana Śikhaṇḍin ; at Vaidiśa Añjalipriya.” Avanti is another name of Ujjayinī; *Vaidisa* is the Sanskrit form of Pali *Vedisa*. The name of the intermediate locality is fluctuating in the tradition of the manuscripts. I have reproduced the reading of the Mss O and H in the text; but D reads *Gonardane*. Of the three Chinese versions, S transcribes *Kiu-kia-t’o-na*, which supposes an original *Gogardana*; Y translates *You-hi*, ‘Bull-joy’, which restores *Gonandana*; A translates *You-ts’oei*, ‘Bull-compress’, that is, *Gomardana*. The Tibetan translator has followed the same text (*Ba-laṅ ’joms*, ‘Bull-compress’). The evidence of the *Suttanipāta* comes to confirm the reading *Gonardana*, because it is evident that, in both cases, the question is of the same locality. The Pali *Gonaddha* may be restored, without difficulty, to Sanskrit *Gonarda*. The aspiration, introduced subsidiarily in the Pali form, is a phenomenon which is nothing exceptional. In that very introduction to the *Pārāyaṇa*, we have already also met with the Sanskrit name of the *Godāvarī*, modified by aspiration of the dental in the interior of the word *Godhāvarī*. A list of analogous cases will be found, *e.g.*, in the Pali by Geiger, § 40 and § 62, and, for the Prakrits in general, in the *Grammatik der Prakrit Schprachen* by Pischel, § 207-209. In proper names, the phenomenon seems due generally to an erroneous interpretation; *e.g.*, *Khanda*, ‘the god Skanda’, owes its aspiration to a confusion with *skandha*, ‘the shoulder’; *Erāpatha* = *Airāvata*, ‘the divine elephant’, has suffered the contamination of *patha*, ‘way’ (as, in Sanskrit also, it has later suffered the contamination of *patra*, ‘leaf’, in becoming *Elāpatra*). One would have believed to recognise the word *godhā*, ‘big lizard’, in the first syllables of the name of the *Godāvarī*. Sanskrit *go-narda* (or *go-naṅdana* by developed suffixation) clearly signifies ‘the lowing of the cow’. Passed to Prakrit under the form *gonadda* (or *go-naṅdana*), the word becomes unintelligible. The root *nard* seems to have submitted in Prakrit to the root *nad* from which it hardly differentiates itself. Moreover, the word *go* quite naturally suggested the word *naddha*, ‘attached, bound’.

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³ *Journ. Asiat.*, 1915, I, p. 43, verse 19.

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Whatever be the explanation, the equivalence *Gonarda* = *Gonaddha* is certain. The name of Gonarda is indissolubly connected with the memory of Patañjali, ‘the Gonardian’, Gonardīya. A constant tradition attested by Kaiyaṭa, by the author of the Trikāṇḍaśeṣa, and by Hemacandra, identifies the personage designated by the name of Gonardīya in the Mahābhāṣya with the author of the Mahābhāṣya. Kielhorn, it is true, vigourously contested the value of that tradition¹ and maintained that the Gonardīya was the author of the Kārikā in verse, utilised and cited by Patañjali. The authority of Kielhorn in questions concerning the Mahābhāṣya surely deserves the highest consideration. But his interpretation is not in requisite contradiction of the Indian tradition. Patañjali might refer in the Mahābhāṣya to an anterior work which he had composed, designating himself with an appellation of impersonal character, derived from his place of birth. The geographical situation of Gonardaa lways agrees marvellously with the rare indications, which may be deduced from the Mahābhāṣya, for fixing the date of Patañjali. The two essential facts are : (1) the mention of Puṣyamitra, of his court (sabhā), and of his sacrifice (iha Puṣyamitraṃ yājayāmaḥ ); (2) the mention of the Greek conquests in India (aruṇad=Yavanaḥ Sāketam, aruṇad=Yavano Madhyamikām). Now, Gonarda is the nearest step to Vidiśā. Vidiśā, according to the evidence of the accounts followed by Kālidāsa in the Mālavikāgnimitra, was the capital where the son of Puṣyamitra resided in the capacity of a viceroy. And Vidiśā was also in close connections with Greek politics. The column of Besnagar, on the site of the ancient Vidiśā, preserves the memory of a Greek ambassador (Yona-dūta), Heliodorus, sent by the Greek king Antialkidas, to the Indian king Kāśīputra Bhāgabhadra. Moreover, the geographical horizon of the Mahābhāṣya sets itself harmoniously around the Gonarda-Vidiśā region as the centre. Excepting some general designations of territories, e.g. Vidarbha, Videha, Cola, Kerala, etc., which do not implicate any direct and personal knowledge, the names of localities, cities or towns form themselves in a sort of triangle, of which the base goes from Pāṭaliputra to the Punjab, and of which the apex reaches the lower Narmadā about Māhiṣmatī. Māhiṣmatī figures in the itinerary of the Pārāyaṇa as an intermediate step which the disciples of Bāvari, who started from Pratiṣṭhāna, reached on their way to Ujjayinī. Likewise the Mahābhāṣya has :

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¹ Ind. Ant., Vol. XV, pp. 81-83.

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उज्जयिन्याः स्थितो माहिष्मत्यां सूर्यमुद्गमयति ।¹

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¹ On Pāṇini, III, 1, 26.

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A difficulty seems to oppose directly the location of Gonarda that I propose. The name of Gonarda is cited as that of a place ‘in the land of the Orientals’ in the Candravṛtti² and in the Kāśikāvṛtti on Pāṇini, I, 1,75, just for explaining the formation of the derivative Gonardiya without vṛddhi. Pāṇini says that, by exception, the diphthongs *e* and *o* should be considered as in the degree of vṛddhi (which is normally *ai* and *au*) in the names of places of the land of the Orientals (*eṅ prācāṃ deśe*). Candragomin reproduces this *sūtra* adapting it in his system (III, 2, 25 : *eṅ-ādy-acaḥ prāg-deśāt*). We are evidently surprised, and even shocked, to see Gonarda, which is in the heart of Mālava, here placed in ‘the East’ of India. We have not, however, the right to call the assertion of Candragomin and the Kāśikā in question. It is not the question of following a blind confidence in the geographical knowledge of these commentaries; but the reasoning, from the grammatical order, is unquestionable. Gonardiya is a derivative formed by means of the suffix *cha* (=*īya*). The suffix *cha* joins a stem having vṛddhi.³ Gonardiya is treated as a stem of vṛddhi, though it has *o*, and not *au*, in the first syllable. The thing then is that it enters into the exception anticipated by Pāṇini.⁴ So Gonarda, from which it derived, is a name a of locality of the Orientals.

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² On Candragomin, III, 2, 25, etc.

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³ Vṛddhāc=chaḥ (Pāṇini, IV 2, 114).

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⁴ I, 1,75.

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But what should we mean by ‘the Orientals’, *prāñcaḥ*? The grammar, since Pāṇini, knows only two groupings as regards the cardinal points, *viz.*, the Northerners (*udañcaḥ*) and the Easterners (*prāñcaḥ*). A traditional verse quoted by the Kāśikā⁵ and Kṣīrasvāmin¹ establishes that division :

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⁵ On Pāṇini, I, 1, 75.

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¹ On Amara, II, 1, 6-7.

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प्रागुदंचौ विभजते हंसः क्षीरोदके यथा ।
विदुषां शब्दसिद्धयर्थं सा नः पातु शरावती ॥

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‘She separates the East and the North, as the swan separates the milk and the water, for fixing well the usage of the classical language. May the Śarāvatī protect us!’

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And the Dictionary of Amara, in describing the earth, stands also on that double division which it completes by the secondary association of the two other directions :

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. . . . . . . . शरावत्यास्तु योऽवधेः ।
देशः प्रादक्षिणः प्राच्य उदीच्यः पश्चिमोत्तरः ॥²

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² II, 1, 6-7.

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‘In starting from the Śarāvatī, the country, which is to the south-east, is the East; that, which is to the north-west, is the North.’

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Thus, to Amara, the South is expressly connected with the East, and the North with the West. The glossologist Vandyaghaṭīya [ Sarvānanda ] writes on the passage that ‘the Śarāvatī is a river of India that runs from the north-east towards the Western Ocean.’ ( एतस्मिंश्च भारते वर्षे शरावती नाम नदी ऐशान्या दिशः सकाशात् पश्चिमसमुद्रगामिनी वहति ). The indication seems plain and clear. Unfortunately real geography does not confirm it. Vandyaghaṭīya, a veritable glossologist, has deduced from the text itself the indication which he appears to have added here. He has borrowed it neither from the modern geography, nor from the ancient, nor from the consecrated nomenclatures of the rivers in the epics and the Purāṇas. The pretended Śarāvatī of Vandyaghaṭīya will be searched in vain. In fact, the tradition has perpetuated, this time also, an appellation that had no more any relation, for a long time, with reality.

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There had been a time, when the name Śarāvatī, ‘[the river] with reeds,’ was applied to a course of water, which separated the whole of Aryan India into two parts. Pāṇini expressly teaches the formation of the name.³ The memory of a frontier indicated by the river Śarāvatī is curiously preservd in a celebrated episode of the Buddhist tradition. When Koṭi-karṇa goes to consult the Buddha on the limits of the country of strict observance, the Lord fixes the southern limit at Śarāvatī: "In the South there is a city named Śarāvatī, and beyond that is a river named Śarāvatī. There is the boundary (दक्षिणेन शरावती नाम नगरी, तस्याः परेण शरावती नाम नदी, सोऽन्तः)." Such is at least the tradition of the Mūlasarvāstivādin school in the original text gathered by the compilers of the *Divyāvadāna*.¹ The editors of the text, Cowell and Neil, cite two variants of the name, furnished by some manuscripts of inferior value: *Sarvāvatī* (Ms. A) and *Savārāvatī* (Ms. B). It is this last reading which has been followed by Yi-tsing, the author (responsible, if not actual) of the Mūlasarvāstivādin *Vinaya*. He has rendered the name of the city and the river as *Che-pa(or fo)-lo-fa-ti* which supposes an original *Śavaravatī*.² Yi-tsing reproduces the same form of the name in another treatise of the same *Vinaya*, viz. the *Mūlasarvāstivāda Ekaśatakarman*,³ wherein the same episode is repeated in an abridged from. The reading *Śavaravatī* is undoubtedly due to an attempt at correction to substitute for the unknown Śarāvatī a name which evoked the idea of the savage tribes of the Śavaras who inhabited the central plateau on the southern border of the basin of the Ganges. The corresponding passage of the *Vinaya* of the Sarvāstivādins is known to us only from the Chinese version due to Puṇyatara, which appears, owing to the fault of the translator or of the original, in a state of inextricable confusion. After having given Mount Uśīra (Yeou-chi-lo) as the northern limit, it adds: 'beyond that mountain, and not far off, there is the tree So-lo by the source with rushes'.⁴ The 'source with rushes' seems to be the equivalent of Śarāvatī, '[the water] which has some reeds,' and the tree So-lo=Sārā or Sālā seems to go back to the same original. Through and through, this *Vinaya* gives 'the river of the Bamboos', as the limit in the North-East which too evokes the Śarāvatī. Such as it is, the passage is not then utilisable. The Pali *Vinaya* of the Sthavira school substitutes *Salalavatī* (with the variants *Sallavatī* and *Salilavatī*, though the evidence of *Jātaka*, I, 49, and the *Sumaṅgalavilāsinī*, I, 173, confirms the reading *Salala°*) for *Śrāvatī*. It makes that river the boundary in the south-east : *puratthima-dakkhiṇāya disāya Salalavatī nāma nadī*.¹ The direction of the south-east in the Pali work partly agrees with the direction of the south in the *Vinaya* of the Mūlasarvāstivādins. It is in absolute contradiction of the Brāhmaṇical conception of the *Śrāvatī* which, separating the North and the East, must flow to the north-west of the country of the Middle, *i.e.* Madhya-deśa, which is the land of strict observance.

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³ Śar-ādīnām ca ( VI; 3, 120 ).

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¹ Ed. Cowell and Neil, p. 21.

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² Tok., XVII, 4, 108-a, 9.

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³ Tok., XVII, 5, 57-b, 2.

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⁴ Tok., XVI, 4, 59-a, 17.

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¹ *Vinayapiṭaka*, *Mahāvagga*, V, 13, 12.

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The city of *Śrāvatī* (*Śrāvatī-nagarī*), which the *Vinaya* of the Mūlasarvāstivādins place just on this side of the river *Śrāvatī*, is no better known than the river itself. A city of the same name, it is true, appears in the *Raghuvamśa*, XV, 97, as the capital of Lava, son of Rāma, while the latter’s other son reigned at *Kuśāvatī* :

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स निवेश्य कुशावत्यां रिपुनागांकुशं कुशम् ।
शरावत्यां सतां सूक्तेर्जनिताश्रुलवं लवम् ॥

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This is at least the text adopted by Mallinātha and generally accepted on the authority of that commentator. But the commentators Vallabha, Vijayānanda-sūri and Caritravardhana read : *Śrātastyāṃ ca*, and Hemādri and Sumativijaya have: *Śrāvatyāṃ ca*. And in fact, the Uttarakāṇḍa of the *Rāmāyaṇa*, which Kālidāsa follows, calls the capital of Lava *Śrāvastī* in the text of Bombay CVIII, 5, as the text of Calcutta, CXXI, 4 (श्रावस्तीति पुरी रम्या श्राविता च लवस्य च)². Actually, according to all the texts of the *Rāmāyaṇa*, Lava reigned over Uttara-Kośala while Kuśa ruled over Kośala proper (कोशलेषु कुशं वीरमुत्तरेषु तथा लवम्). *Śrāvastī* was the capital of Uttara-Kośala.³ The city and the

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² Gorresio's edition, CXIII, 24 has *Śrāvatī* :

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³ [The *Raghuvamśa* (XVI, 31 ff.) suggests that Kuśāvatī lay in a territory to the south of the Vindhyas, apparently in the present Raipur-Bilaspur-Sambalpur region which was called Kośala at least before the middle of the fourth century when the Allahabad pillar inscription of Samudragupta was composed. This country was regarded as Kośala proper while the Ayodhyā region was known as Uttara-Kośala. Cf. Dey, *Geog. Dict.*, s. v.]

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लवस्य तु पुरीं रम्यां श्रावतिं लोकविश्रुताम्.

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river of Śarāvatī on the confines of the North and the East have nothing to do here.

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A precise location of the site of Gonarda with reference to Śarāvatī, which is not to be found, must then be given up. But one fact subsists. In the traditional division of Āryāvarta into two regions, viz. North and East, Gonarda, treated grammatically as a locality of the ‘Orientals’, is not in the North, however may have come its secondary orientation. It is then not to be surprised if Varāhamihira, the only known author who mentions Gonarda after the texts already cited,¹ places Gonarda among the countries of the south in his astrological chart of India (Bṛhatsaṃhitā, XIV, 12: अथ दक्षिणेन लंका . . . भरुकच्छा . . . वनवासि . . . कोंकणामीरा: आ करवेणाव (sic. न) र्तंक दशपुरगोनर्दकेरलका: कर्णाट . . . नासिक्य . . . तुम्बवनकार् मणेयका:). The name of Gonarda appears twice more in the Bṛhatsaṃhitā, in the texts of two purely astrological groupings: IX, 13: अन्येनात्राक्रान्ते म्लेच्छाटविकाश्वजीवोगोमन्तान् । गोनर्दनीचशूद्रान् वैदेहांश्चानय: स्पृशति ॥ And XXXII, 22 : गोनर्दचेदिकुरान् किरातवंदेहकान् हन्ति ॥ In his geographical nomenclature, Varāhamihira seems to throw the names at the hazard of the metre, so that nothing about their relative position can be inferred from a stand on the order of classification. Among these names of the southern regions, there is one, however, which deserves detaining attention. This is the name of Tumbavana. But the locality is, as far as I know, completely unknown in literatures. Nevertheless, in the Paramatthajotikā, his commentary on the Suttanipāta, Buddhaghoṣa remarks on some verses of the Pārāyaṇa, wherein Gonarda is mentioned : Ujjeniñ=c=āpi Gonaddham Vedisam Vana-savhayam, that ‘Vana-savhaya (literally, ‘which bears the name of a forest’) designates Tumbavana-nagara, others maintaining that this is Vanasāvatthi’ (Vana-savhayan=ti Tumbavana-(na*)garam vuccati, Vanasāvatthin=ti pi eke). The gloss is quoted by Andersen-Smith’s edition of the *Suttanipāta*.¹ Thus, according to the statement of Buddhaghoṣa, Tumbavana would be the step between Vidiśā and Kauśāmbī, on the route from Gonaddha-Gonarda towards the Yamunā.² In fact, in the *Stūpa* of Sanchi near the site of Vidiśā (lat. 23° 28' N. ; long. 77° 48' E. ), five inscriptions³ commemorate the donations made by some inhabitants of Tumbavana. Among the benefactors of the *Stūpa*, are represented the inhabitants of Māhiṣmatī, Ujjayinī and Vidiśā. It is astonishing not to meet some people of Gonarda.

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¹ [The Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa mentions Gonarda along with the countries of the southern and western parts of India. See chapter LVIII, verses 20-29, though the stanzas appear to be an adaptation from those of the Bṛhatsaṃhitā. But the Purāṇas generally mention Gonarda along with the eastern countries (cf. above, p.29, note 2).]

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¹ *Op. cit.*, p. 194.

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² [ Tumbavana is modern Tumain in the Guna District of the former Gwalior State. See the Tumain inscription of the Gupta year 116, which mentions Tumbavana, in *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXVI, pp. 115ff. ]

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³ Lüders’ List, Nos. 201, 202, 449, 450, 520.

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The authenticity of the geographical nomenclature in the introduction of the *Pārāyaṇa* is confirmed by a decisive trait. Bāvari is here represented as settled on the bank of the Godāvarī, in the region of Aḷaka :

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*So Assakassa visaye Aḷakassa samāsane |*
*vasī Godhāvarī-kule uñchena ca phalena ca ||* (verse 2)

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When his disciples leave him, their first step towards the North is the city of ‘Paṭiṭṭhāna of Aḷaka’ (*Aḷakassa Paṭiṭṭhānam*, v. 36). Such is at least the text adopted by the editors, Fausboell and Andersen-Smith. But the material furnished by the latter shows that, in the two passages, the Burmese manuscripts have Muḷaka instead of Aḷaka. The inscription of Śrī-Puḷumāyi at Nasik, enumerating the provinces annexed by Gautamiputra to his empire, names the country of Muḷaka which it puts together with the country of Asaka (Assaka) exactly as the *Pārāyaṇa* does : *Asika-Asaka-Muḷaka-Suraṭha-Kukur-Aparānta-Anūpa - Vidabha-Ākar-Āvati*. The latest editor of the inscription, M. Senart, wrote about the name Muḷaka : “The Muḷakas remain shrouded in obscurity. Bhagwanlal adduced the dynasty of the Muṇḍakas, known from the *Viṣṇu Purāṇa* ; and the way in which they are here mentioned together with the Śakas and Tukhāras is such as to commend the hint. But I am doubtful about the change of *ḷ* into *ṇ*.”⁴ Thanks to the text of the *Pārāyaṇa* the mystery is solved. The site of Muḷaka may also be determined with enough precision, since it is between Asaka (Assaka, Aśmaka) where exists the city of Pratiṣṭhāna (Patiṭhāna), now-a-days Paiṭhan on the upper Godāvarī, near its source, and Suraṭha (Surāṣṭra) which is the modern peninsula of Kathiawar. Muḷaka should then indicate the portion of the coast with the rear-country lying to the north of Bombay, i. e. Gujarāt.¹

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⁴ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. VIII, p. 62.

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¹ {Muḷaka was situated close to Aśmaka and the Godāvarī and the city of Pratiṣṭhāna lay in it. Paiṭhan lies in the Aurangabad District of the former Hyderabad State. Muḷaka was therefore the area around that District which was sometimes included in Aśmaka. See above, pp. 154-55.}

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I shall perhaps be accused of attaching an excessive importance to the order of succession in which the names of provinces are enumerated in the inscription of Puḷumāyi. But the inscription of Rudradāman at Girnar, which goes up to the same epoch, also contains a list of provinces subdued by Rudradāman, the adversary of the Sātakarṇi dynasty, to which Gautamīputra and Puḷumāyi belonged. His domain is partly formed of the territories conquered from the Sātakarṇis. The following are found in this list : Ākar-Āvanti, Anūpa, Surāṣṭra, Kukur-Aparānta, etc. ( पूर्वापराकरवन्त्यनूपनिवृतत्सुराष्ट्रश्वभ्रमरुच्छसिन्धुसौवीरकुकुरापरान्त-निषधादीनाम् ). But here the order of succession is the reverse, since Rudradāman extended his conquests from the north to the south, starting from the region of Ujjayanī, his capital, whereas Gautamīputra, starting from the banks of the Godāvarī, marched conquering from the south to the north.

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The memory of the country of Muḷaka is perhaps not entirely effaced from the Purāṇic tradition. In the genealogy of the race of Ikṣvāku, the Viṣṇu Purāṇa (IV, 4) assigns a son named Aśmaka to Kalmāṣapāda. Aśmaka’s son and successor was Muḷaka, surnamed Nārikavaca, because some women hid and saved him at the time of the general massacre of the Kṣatriyas. Aśmaka is clearly an eponymous hero, the eponym of the country of Aśmaka, the ‘Stony’ territory (aśman=‘stone’), situated to the south of Avanti and closely connected with it. Cf. Avanty-Aśmakāḥ in the Gaṇapāṭha under the Kārta-Kaujap-ādayaḥ Gaṇa and Aśmak-Avanti in the Sarvāstivādin Vinaya episode of Koṭikarṇa. The Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinaya has Aśm-Aparāntaka which Cowell and Neil wrongly read: *asmāt parāntaka*.¹ The relation between Aśmaka and Muḷaka so clearly expressed in the *Pārāyaṇa* (*so Assakassa visaye Muḷakassa samāsane*, v. 2 ) suggests that the filiation indicated in the Purāṇa between king Aśmaka and king Muḷaka interprets a geographical relation by the genealogy.

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¹ *Divyāvadāna*, 1.

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It will be less astonishing to meet in a section of the *Sutta-nipāta* with some details, so precise, of the geography of the regions that encircle the Gulf of Cambay, if it is remembered that one of the pearls of the Collection, viz. the admirable *Dhaniyasutta*,² has the bank of the Mahī for its scene. The shepherd Dhaniya is settled here (*anutīre Mahiyā samāna-vāso*). The Buddha passes a night on the bank of the river (*anutīre Mahiy=eka-ratti-vāso*). The audacity of a poet and a local inspiration must have been necessary for bringing the Buddha in these exotic quarters so far from his real activity, in close contact of the sea frequented by the barbarians.³

c20.53

² *Uragavagga*, 2.

c20.54

³ [ See above, p. 215, note 1. For the situation of the Aśmaka country, see above, pp. 154-55. Only some of the provinces of the kingdoms of Gautamīputra Sātakarṇi and Rudradāman can be regarded as new annexations. ]

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