Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c20.39

c20.39

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.