Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c20.11

c20.11

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.