Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c22.43

c22.43

Gaya as a personal name, with which the holy place called Gaya or Gayā (cf. Gaya-śiras or Gayā° and Gaya-śirṣa or Gayā°) is intimately associated, is well known from the *Ṛgveda*¹ and *Atharvaveda*.² The unanimous testimony of the Puranic writers and medieval lexicographers suggests that the Gayā region was known to the Rigvedic seers as Kikaṭa.³ Although pilgrimage to holy places for the sake of merit seems to be a non-Aryan religious institution which took some time in being fully approved by the Brahmanical society, the importance of the holy hill called Gaya-śiras at Gayā appears to have been recognised in very early times. This is suggested by Yāska’s *Nirukta* (12, 19) which, while explaining the Vedic passage *tredhā nidadhe padam*,⁴ quotes the view of an earlier authority named Aurnavābha saying that Viṣṇu plants his foot at Samārohaṇa, Viṣṇu-pada and Gaya-śiras. These were evidently three holy spots. Since in the whole of India, there is only one Gaya-śiras or Gaya-śirṣa (Gayā-śiras or Gayā-śirṣa) near Gayā in Bihar, the tradition, attributed to Aurnavābha by Yāska who is believed by scholars to have flourished between 700 and 500 B.C.,⁵ certainly points to the antiquity of Gayā as a recognised holy place of antiquity. The conclusion is supported by the frequent mention of the holy spots at Gayā and its neighbourhood in early Buddhist literature.