Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c5.s1.69

c5.s1.69

Besides the above *cakravarti-kṣetra* comprising the whole of Bhāratvarṣa, sometimes North India and South India were regarded as separate spheres of influence of the imperial monarchs respectively of Northern and Southern India. In view of the conventional nature of the claim of the status of a *cakravartin*, it is interesting to note that sometimes the same king is represented as the lord of the whole of the *cakravarti-kṣetra* in one case but of the partial *cakravarti-kṣetra* comprising either North or South India in another. We have referred above to the description of the Pāla king Devapāla of Bengal and Bihar as the only lord of the whole land bounded by the Himālaya, Rāma’s bridge, the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. Elsewhere¹, however, the same monarch is said to have subdued the whole land bounded by the father of the Revā (Narmadā), i.e. the Vindhya, in the south; the father of Gaurī, i.e. the Himālaya, in the north; and the two seas (eastern and western, i.e. the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea) in the east and west. These boundaries of North India are no doubt based on Manu’s celebrated definition of Āryāvarta.² Similar claims are known to have been made on behalf of many other imperial rulers of Northern India. Thus Vīsala or Vigraharāja IV (c. 1053-64 A.D.) of the Cāmana dynasty of Ajmer and Śākambharī is described as having subdued Āryāvarta lying between the Vindhya and the Himādri.³