Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c22.22

c22.22

The *Mahābhārata* (III, 95) describes how, at Brahma-saras (within Gayā), *Rājarṣi* Gaya, son of Amūrtarayas, performed many sacrifices distinguished by ‘hundreds of mountains of food and thousands of lakes of clarified butter, many hundred rivers of curds, and streams of curries in thousands’ and how people in all lands used to sing *gāthās* on the subject. Elsewhere the same work (VII, 64) speaks of Gaya’s sacrificial altar of solid gold that was 30 *yojanas* long, 26 *yojanas* broad and 24 *yojanas* high and how, upon the completion of the sacrifice, 25 hills of food remained over together with many lakes and rivulets of savoury drinks. In consequence of this glorious performance, Brahma-saras and the ‘eternal-making banyan-tree’ (*i.e.* the Akṣaya-vaṭa) at the place are stated to have become famous throughout the three worlds.⁷ The same saintly king named Gaya is also known from the *Rāmāyaṇa*,¹ *Bhāgavata Purāṇa*² *Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa*,³ *Agni Purāṇa*,⁴ *Viṣṇu Purāṇa*,⁵ *Vāmana Purāṇa*,⁶ etc., although his parentage is sometimes given differently. The antiquity of the tradition is definitely proved by Aśvaghoṣa’s *Buddhacarita*⁷ composed in the first or second century A.D., during the age of the Kuṣāṇas. This work speaks of the Buddha’s visit to the hermitage called ‘the city of the royal sage Gaya’. The same person was later conceived as a great giant.⁸ The demon’s body is said to have been 125 *yojanas* in height and 60 *yojanas* in girth. It will be seen that, while the 25 hills of the *Mahābhārata* story were imagined to explain the existence of sacred hills in the Gayā area, the huge body of the demon was conceived as the hilly region, studded with holy spots, extending from Gayā to the coastal areas of the Bay of Bengal. Gaya’s head was believed to be represented by Gaya-śiras or Gaya-śīrṣa (Gayā-śiras or Gayā-śīrṣa) at Gayā while Virajā or Jājpur in the Cuttack District of Orissa and Pithapuram in the Godavari District of Andhra Pradesh were taken to represent respectively his navel and feet.⁹ The frequent mention of the shaking of the earth in this connection in the *Vāyu Purāṇa* (Ch. 106) possibly hints at earthquakes that occasionally depopulated Gayā.¹⁰