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Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c9: V. Gauḍa

Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c9

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V. Gauḍa

1. Gauḍa as the Name of a City

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Gauḍa (usually written *Gaur* in English) was the residence of several dynasties of the Muslim rulers of Bengal for many centuries from the establishment of Muhammadan rule in the country about the close of the twelfth century A.D. The ruins of the city lie in lat. 24° 52′, long. 88° 10′ to the north or left bank of the Ganges and south of the modern town of Malda, headquarters of the District of that name in West Bengal. The traces of the ruined city with some buildings of Muhammadan times extend over an immense area now chiefly covered with jungle. As late as the middle of the sixteenth century, a European traveller gives the following account of the city of Gauḍa: "It is situated on the banks of the Ganges and is said to be three of our leagues in length and to contain 200000 inhabitants. On the one side it has the river for its defence and on the landward faces a wall of great height......the streets are thronged with the concourse and traffic of people......that they cannot force their way past......a great part of the houses of this city are stately and well-wrought buildings."¹ In 1683, another European traveller who visited the old city in ruins says, "We spent 3 hours in seeing the ruins especially of the palace which has been......in my judgment considerably bigger and more beautiful than the Grand Seignor's seraglio at Constantinople or any other palace that I have seen in Europe."¹

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¹ See *Hobson-Jobson*, s. v. *Gour*.

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In Muslim times, the city of Gauḍa was also known by the name Lakhnautī no doubt a corruption of Sanskrit *Lakṣmaṇāvatī*. This name was apparently coined after that of king Lakṣmaṇasena (circa 1189-1206 A.D.) of the Sena dynasty, who was ousted from the western and northern districts of Bengal by the Muhammadans. The Senas thus appear to have had at least one of their secondary capitals at Gauḍa. The city of Rāmāvatī (called Rāmautī by the Muslim writers), named after the Pāla king Rāmapāla (circa 1077-1120 A.D) and the capital or a secondary capital of the Later Pālas of Bengal and Bihar, was probably also situated in the vicinity of the present site of Gauḍa. Thus Gauḍa flourished as an important city of Eastern India for a considerable period of time before the establishment of Muslim rule, and pre-Muslim rulers of the country often built new cities named after them in the vicinity of the site of the old city.

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The Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini who flourished in North-Western India about the fifth century B.C. speaks of a city called Gauḍapura. But the rule pure prācām (6, 2, 99) which immediately precedes the rule ariṣṭa-gauḍa-pūrve ca (6,2,100) suggests that both the cities, viz., Ariṣṭapura and Gauḍapura referred to in the Aṣṭādhyāyī, were situated outside the eastern part of I ndia¹ in a region which was more or less fully Aryanised before the composition of the grammatical work in question. There is again no reason to believe that the Aryanisation of Western Bengal (in which the Gauḍa country was situated) made any appreciable progress in the age of Pāṇini.² Thus the identification of Pāṇini's Gauḍapura with the city of Gauḍa in Bengal is highly improbable. The name Gauḍa is supposed to be derived from the word guḍa meaning 'sugar'. The country, of which Gauḍa was the chief city, was also known by the same name possibly because it was famous in ancient times for its production of sugar. But whether the name of the city was applied to the country or that of the country to its chief city cannot be dertermined in the present state of our knowledge. The fact however that, in the seventh century A.D., the capital of the Gauḍa country was called Karṇasuvarṇa (modern Rāṅgāmāṭi, about eleven miles to the south of Murshidabad, headquarters of the District of that name to the south of the Ganges and Malda) seems to suggest that the city was named after the country. This fact also indicates that the city of Gauḍa was built in its present site to the south of Malda some time after the seventh century probably in the age of the Pālas. It is interesting to note in this connection that all the *jaya-skandhāvāras* (i.e. residences or temporary capitals) of the Pāla kings, including Rāmāvatī-nagara (in the vicinity of the site of Gauḍa) were situated on the Ganges. Urged by their preference for a city on the main course of the river, the Pāla kings may have transferred the headquarters of the Gauḍa country from Karṇasuvarṇa to the present site of Gauḍa in the Malda District. This seems to have been done after the main current of the river had begun to pass through the Padmā and the Bhāgīrathī (the original Ganges), on which Karṇasuvarṇa was situated, had begun to be gradually less important as a watercourse. There is moreover reason to believe that originally the Ganges flowed by a route through the middle of the present District of Malda so that the city of Gauḍa lay on its southern or right bank.¹

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¹ Cf. S. Sen, Vāṅgālā Sāhityer Itihāsa, Vol. I, 2nd ed., p. 4.

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² See my 'Spread of Aryanism in Bengal,' in Journal of the Asiatic Society, Letters, Vol. XVIII, 1952, pp. 171 ff.

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¹ Cf. *Hist. Beng.*, Dacca University, Vol. I, p. 3.

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About the ancient course of the Ganges, a distinguished writer says, ‘The tract between Malda and Murshidabad was the ancient Ganges delta where the river split up into numerous spill channels, the most important of which appear to be the Sarasvatī, the Bhāgīrathī and the Bhairab. Leaving the hills of Rajmahal, the Ganges seems to have passed northwards through the modern Kalindri, and then southwards into the lower course of the Mahānandā, east of the ruins of ancient Gaur. There was also the south-eastern branch of the Ganges (modern Padmā), the bifurcation being pretty old and shown in Ptolemy’s map. In the oldest of modern maps, De Barros’ (1550) and Gastaldi’s (1561), Gaur is shown on the west of the Ganges. Leaving Gaur, the main waters of the Ganges turned southward and flowed through the channel of the Bhairab (as Kṛttivāsa, the reputed author who flourished in the fourteenth century, indicated) and, from at least the twelfth to the sixteenth century, through the Sarasvatī into the Bay, while the ancient eastern branch of the Ganges is traceable in the *jhils* and morasses which extend from Purnea to the sea. The Ganges thus forsook this course in favour of the channel through which the Bhāgīrathī now passes.”¹ The situation of the Gauḍa capital Karṇasuvarṇa on its banks seems to suggest that the present Bhāgīrathī carried the main current of the Ganges as late as the seventh century A.D.

2. Gauḍa as the Name of a Country

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In modern times, the name Gauḍa is often used in Bengali literature to indicate the whole area inhabited by the Bengali-speaking people. Originally however the Gauḍa country seems to have comprised, in a narrow sense, the present District of Murshidabad together with the southernmost areas of the Malda District of Bengal. The Chinese pilgrim Hiuen-tsang who visited India in the first half of the seventh century A.D. speaks of Karṇasuvarṇa as the name of both the capital and the kingdom of king Śaśāṅka who killed king Rājyavardhana of Thānesar about 605 A.D. The king responsible for the death of Rājyavardhana is however described in the *Harṣacarita* of Bāṇa, who flourished at the court of Rājyavardhana’s younger brother and successor Harṣa, as ‘the lord of Gauḍa’. There is thus no doubt that Gauḍa was the usual name of Hiuen-tsang’s kingdom of Karṇasuvarṇa apparently so named by the Chinese traveller after the name of the capital of that kingdom. According to the Chinese account, the celebrated Buddhist monastery called Raktamṛttikā-vihāra stood on the suburbs of the city of Karṇasuvarṇa and the country of that name was about 730 or 750 miles in circuit. As the monastery in question has been located at modern Rāṅgā-māṭi (literally, ‘the red earth’, the same as Sanskrit *Rakta-mṛttikā*) about eleven miles to the south of Murshidabad, the Karṇasuvarṇa or Gauḍa country has to be located about the present Murshidabad District, although the dominions of the Gauḍa king Śaśāṅka is known to have actually comprised wide regions of Eastern India.

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The above location of Gauḍa in a narrow sense is remarkably supported by a late Purāṇic tradition. An interpolated section in some manuscripts of the *Bhavisya Purāṇa* locates Gauḍa-deśa,

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Radhakamal Mookerjee, *The Changing Face of Bengal*, 1938, pp. 141-2.

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inhabited by the deity Gauḍeśa or Gauḍeśī, in the land between the river Padmā and Vardhamāna. Thus the Gauḍa country is placed exactly about the Murshidabad District bounded in the north by the Padmā and in the south by the Burdwan or Vardhamāna District. The same authority regards Gauḍa as only one of the seven deśas forming Puṇḍra-deśa, viz. (1) Gauḍa, (2) Varendra (Malda-Rajshahi-Bogra region), (3) Niviti, (4) Suhma-deśa (i.e., Rāḍha), (5) Jhārīkhaṇḍa (Santal Parganas District) called jāṅgala apparently meaning ‘jungly’, (6) Varāhabhumi (Barābhūm in the Manbhum District), and (7) Vardhamāna (Burdwan).¹ The localities forming the Gauḍa country according to the same tradition are : (1) Navadvīpa (in the Nadia District), (2) Śāntipura (in the Nadia District), (3) Maulapattana (Mollāi in the Hooghly District), and (4) Kaṇṭakapattana (Katwa in the Burdwan District). The tradition would thus comprise in the Gauḍa country the present Murshidabad District together with parts of the Nadia, Burdwan and Hooghly Districts of West Bengal. It may be pointed out in this connection that the Puṇḍra country in this tradition comprised Western and Northern Bengal together with some eastern districts of Bihar. Niviti is said to have included Bardhankoṭ in the Rangpur District. It is sometimes believed that the same name is found in the Trikāṇḍaśeṣa. But the Trikāṇḍaśeṣa passage Puṇḍrāḥ syur = Varendrī Gauḍa-nivṛti seems to mean that the Puṇḍra country was the same as Varendrī lying in the realm (nivṛt) of Gauḍa. The name Gauḍa is here used in a wider sense. It is however not improbable that the Bhaviṣya Purāṇa tradition is based on a misunderstanding of the Trikāṇḍaśeṣa passage.

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The late medieval work entitled Ṣaṭpañcāśaddeśavibhāga which is incorporated in the Śaktisaṅgama Tantra describes the Gauḍa country as lying between the country of Vaṅga and Bhuvaneśa, i.e. Bhubaneswar in the Puri District of Orissa.¹ The same work describes Vaṅga as the land extending from the sea to the Brahmaputra.² The sea is apparently the Bay of Bengal in the south of Vaṅga, while Brahmaputra placed on the northern boundary of Vaṅga seems to indicate that portion of the river which bifurcates from the Jumna. Thus the eastern half of Bengal has been called Vaṅga and its western half together with parts of Orissa has been designated Gauḍa in the work in question. This broad division of the Bengali-speaking area into two halves, viz. Eastern Bengal called Vaṅga and Western Bengal called Gauḍa, is echoed by some Muslim historians who spoke of the country as Gaur-Bangāl, i.e. Gauḍa-Vaṅga. Vaṅgāla (Bangāl) was originally the name of the Buckergunje region of the Vaṅga country; but later the name came to be applied to the whole of Vaṅga or East Bengal and still later to the whole of the Bengali-speaking area. At present, Gauḍa, Vaṅga and Vaṅgāla are indiscriminately used to indicate the wide area of East India where the Bengali language is spoken. The major part of the country lies in West Bengal in the Indian Union and East Bengal in Pakistan; but parts of it belong to the other neighbouring states like Bihar.

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¹ See above, p. 92.

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² Cf. above, p. 84.

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We have seen that the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen-tsang describes Karṇasuvarṇa or Gauḍa as a small tract. It is to be noticed that he distinguishes the above country from Puṇyavardhana or Puṇḍravardhana in North Bengal, Samaṭaṭa in South-East Bengal and Tāmralipti in South-West Bengal. In Indian literature also Gauḍa is likewise separated from other tracts of Bengal. The Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra (Chs. 32-33) mentions the textile products of Vaṅga and Puṇḍra and the silver of Gauḍa. Varāhamihira’s Bṛhatsaṃhitā (XIV) mentions side by side Suhma, Samaṭaṭa, Lauhitya (the Brahmaputra valley), Gauḍaka (i.e. Gauḍa), Pauṇḍra (i.e. Puṇḍravardhana), Tāmraliptika (i.e. Tāmralipta) and Vardhamāna. There is reason to believe that the northern and south-eastern parts of Bengal were Aryanised considerably earlier than the western part of the country including Gauḍa. The mention of Gauḍa in the Arthaśāstra, which in its present form has to be assigned to about the third century A.D., points to the growing importance of the country in the economic life of Eastern India. In the fourth century A. D., the Gauḍa region became an integral part of the Gupta empire; but, with the decline of the imperial power of the Guptas, the Gauḍas established an independent monarchy in the sixth century. The importance of Gauḍa became established in the social and cultural life of India during the days of these independent monarchs of Gauḍa. We have already referred to king Śaśāṅka of Gauḍa, who flourished about the first quarter of the seventh century A.D. and ruled over extensive territories in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. An earlier king of Karṇasuvarṇa was Jayanāga. Three other kings of Gauḍa appear to have been Dharmāditya, Gopacandra and Samācāradeva who ruled in sixth century A.D. Under the vigorous rule of these monarchs, Gauḍa appears to have extended its power over the neighbouring territories. One of the above kings of Gauḍa fought with the Maukhari king Iśānavarman about the middle of the sixth century and another conquered and annexed Kāmarūpa to his empire about the close of that century.

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The Maukhari court-poet, while referring to the struggle between the Maukharis and the Gauḍas, speaks of the latter as having been compelled to be *samudr-āśraya*, *i.e.*, a people whose shelter is the sea, owing to their defeat at the hands of the Maukhari king.¹ This shows that in the sixth century A.D. the Gauḍas had already become famous as a sea-faring people. That the Gauḍa country about this time produced many sea-faring merchants is suggested by the discovery of an inscription² of *Mahānāvika* (i.e. Captain) Buddhagupta of Raktamṛttikā (near the Gauḍa capital) in the Wellesley District of the Malay Peninsula. The Dubi inscription of Bhāskaravarman of Kāmarūpa seems to refer to the Gauḍa army as specially strong in naval warfare.³

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¹ Cf. *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XIV, p. 7, text line 3; *J.R.A.S.B.*, Letters, Vol. XI. p. 69. note 4.

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² Chatterjee and Chakravarti, *India and Java*, Part II, p. 7.

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³ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXX, pp. 293 ff.

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It may be mentioned in this connection that, besides Gauḍa in Bengal, some other tracts in different parts of India were also known by this name. One such Gauḍa was the modern Gonda District of Uttar Pradesh, in which the celebrated city of Śrāvastī was situated.⁴ It is, however, possible to think that Gauḍa as the name of Goṇḍa was a later modification of the older name of the area in imitation of the famous land of East India. The name of the Goṇḍ people of Central India was often Sanskritized as Gauḍa and the land inhabited by the Goṇḍs came also to be known by this name. Kannaḍa Gauḍa or Gavuḍa meaning ‘a village headman’ has nothing to do with Bengal. The same is the case with Oriya Gauḍa meaning ‘a milkman’ and written as Gokuṭa in some inscriptions.

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⁴ Cf. *Kūrma Purāṇa*, I, 20, 19. For a controversy on this point, see *History of Bengal*, Dacca University, Vol. I .p. 579, note.

3. Gauḍa as the Collective Name of the Eastern Countries of India

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About a century after the establishment of the powerful kingdom of Gauḍa, its name began to be used in a general sense to indicate the countries of Eastern India. In Daṇḍin’s *Kāvyādarśa* (seventh century) one of the two principal styles of Sanskrit composition is described as Gauḍa or *prācya*, *i.e.* eastern.

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Daṇḍin draws a distinction between the Gauḍa or eastern and the Vaidarbha or southern styles. Among the characteristics of the former is the love of long compounds not only in prose, in which they were also used by the southerners, but also in poetry. The easterners also favoured alliteration and harsh sound effects, recondite etymologizing phraseology and strength often resulting in bombast and affectation. Jacobi believed that Sanskrit poetry in the east had developed the evil effects of old age before the art became current in the western and southern parts of India. But it should be noticed that in Bharata’s *Nāṭyaśāstra*, which is a few centuries earlier than the *Kāvyādarśa*, the qualities which Daṇḍin ascribes to the Vaidarbha style is assigned to the Kāvya style in general. Keith is no doubt right when he says, “This is a strong suggestion that at the time of the *Nāṭyaśāstra* there had not developed the characteristics of the Gauḍa style and that they emerged gradually with the development of poetry at the courts of princes of Bengal.”¹ These ‘princes of Bengal’ appear to have been no other than the kings of Gauḍa who flourished in the sixth century and the earlier part of the seventh, to whom reference has been made above. But the fact that the Gauḍa style came to be ascribed to the whole of Eastern India may suggest that poets at other East Indian courts were imitating those at the Gauḍa court. This led ultimately to the application of the name Gauḍa to East India generally.

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¹ *A History of Sanskrit Literature*, p. 60.

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Like the literary style of Eastern India named after Gauḍa, the East Indian alphabet was named after the same country. Bühler says, "Towards the end of the 11th century, the Nāgarī inscriptions of Eastern India shew such distinct traces of changes leading up to the modern Bengali writing and these changes become so numerous in the 12th century that it is possible to class their alphabets as Proto-Bengali. Only a few among the Proto-Bengali letters are new local formations. The great majority occur already in other older scripts, be it in exactly the same or in similar shape."¹ Bendall and Bühler also noticed the influence of this script on the alphabet used in the Nepalese manuscripts of the period between the 12th and 15th centuries.² Now, in coining the name Proto-Bengali for the script in question, Bühler seems to have ignored several factors. In the first place, 'the eastern variety of the Nāgarī alphabet' found in 'the Nāgarī inscriptions of Eastern India', out of which Proto-Bengali developed in the twelfth century, should better have been distinguished from the 'Nāgarī' found in the inscriptions discovered in other parts of India by applying a more specific name to it. Secondly, when, even earlier than the eleventh century A.D.,³ the same script was used in Bengal, Bihar, Assam and Orissa and when even now Bengal and Assam use practically the same alphabet while the Maithili and Oriya alphabets are nearly the same, the name Proto-Bengali can hardly be regarded as quite appropriate, in spite of the fact that, along with its literature, Bengal's alphabet has come to occupy a more important position. Thirdly, as early as the first half of the eleventh century, the same East Indian script was named after Gauḍa. Al-Birūnī, who wrote his work on India about 1030 A.D., speaks of the following alphabets : (1) Siddhamātṛkā used in the Kashmir, Banāras and Kanauj regions, (2) Nāgara used in Mālava (3-5) Ardhanāgarī, Malwārī and Saindhava, used in Sindh, (6-9) Karṇāṭa, Āndhrī, Drāviḍī and Lārī used respectively in the Kannaḍa, Andhra, Drāviḍa and Lāṭa countries, (10) Gauḍī used in Pūrva-deśa, *i.e.* the eastern country, and (11) Bhaikṣukī which was the writing of the Buddha (*i.e.* the Buddhists) used in Udunpur (possibly Uddaṇḍapura, *i.e.* modern Biharsharif in the Patna District) in Pūrva-deśa.¹ This shows that the East Indian script, called Proto-Bengali by Bühler, was named after Gauḍa at least by the beginning of the eleventh century. Many of the names found in the list of sixty-four alphabets in the *Lalitavistara* (translated into Chinese in 308 A.D.) are apparently imaginary and doubtful ; but the separate mention of the Aṅga-lipi, Vaṅga-lipi, Magadha-lipi, Drāviḍa-lipi, Kanāri-lipi, Dakṣiṇa-lipi, Apara-Gauḍ-ādi-lipi, etc.,² seems to suggest that the tendency towards the growth of special characteristics in the alphabets of Southern and Eastern India was noticed even in an earlier age.

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¹ *Ind. Ant.*, Vol. XXXIII, App., p. 58.

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² *Ibid.*, p. 60.

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³ Ojha (*Prācīnalipimālā*, p. 77) has traced letters like *e* and *kh* of the Bengali type in the inscriptions of the time of Nārāyaṇapāla (*circa* 854-908 A. D.), that is to say, in records belonging to the ninth and tenth centuries. Bühler himself does not deny such facts.

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¹ Sachau, *Alberuni's India*, Vol. I, p. 173.

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² G. H. Ojha, *op. cit.*, p. 7, note 3.

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What has been said above would show that the name Gauḍa was specially applied to the literary style and script of Eastern India and that Gauḍa in these cases indicates the East Indian countries generally. In this connection, attention may be invited to the language of the *caryā* songs assigned by linguists to the period between the tenth and twelfth centuries A.D. They no doubt offer the earliest stage of the East Indian dialect just emerged from the Apabhraṁśa stage. But there is a great controversy among scholars as regards the closeness of the language of the *caryās* with the different dialects now spoken in Eastern India such as Bengali, Assamese, Oriya, Maithili and Eastern Hindi. Linguisticians whose mother-tongue is any of the above languages have tried to prove the special affinity of the *caryā* dialect with their mother-tongue. Thus H. P. Sastri, S. K. Chatterji, P. C. Bagchi, S. K. Sen and other Bengali scholars believe that the *caryās* are written in old Bengali. K. L. Barua and other Assamese writers regard the language of the *caryās* as old Assamese which they call Kāmarūpī. J. K. Misra and others from Mithila take the *caryā* language to be old Maithili. There are also similar claims on behalf of Oriya and Eastern Hindi.¹ We are however inclined to believe that the characteristics of the *caryā* language may be easily traced in all the languages now spoken in Eastern India because it was the language of Eastern India generally. The authors of the songs may be attributed to particular areas and their compositions may exhibit in some cases certain regional peculiarities; but it will hardly be correct for the matter of that to regard the language of the songs to be any one of those that later developed in the areas in question especially in view of the fact that the modern languages of Eastern India have a good deal in common amongst them. It is very probable that, in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries A.D., the difference among these languages was not as remarkable as in modern times and that the literary language of the *caryās* was easily understood in different parts of Eastern India. The proper name for the *caryā* language should therefore be Gauḍī or East Indian and not old Bengali, Assamese, Maithili, Oriya or Eastern Hindi. We may then have a Gauḍa language besides a Gauḍa style of Sanskrit composition and a Gauḍa alphabet. East Indian linguists of particular areas may successfully trace affinities of their mother-tongue with the *caryā* language; but they should better not regard it as the origin exclusively of their mother-tongue.²

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¹ See S. K. Sen, *op. cit.*, pp. 45 ff. ; K. L. Barua, *Early History of Kāmarūpa*, pp. 318 ff.; J. K. Misra, *History of Maithila Literature*, p. x; etc.

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² The Gauḍi dialect (*vibhāṣā*) is recognised in Puruṣottama’s *Prākṛtānuśāsana* (12th century). See my *Gram. Prak. Lang.*, p. 118.

4. Gauḍa as the Name of Āryāvarta or Northern India

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The South Indian Brāhmaṇas are usually divided into five sections, viz., Drāviḍa (Tamil), Karṇāṭa, Gurjara, Mahārāṣṭra and Tailaṅga. These are collectively called the Pañca-Drāviḍa.³

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³ See Apte, *Sanskrit-English Dictionary*, s. v. Drāviḍa. The *Śabdakalpadruma*, s. v., quotes a faulty stanza from the *Skanda Purāṇa* in support of the list of the five classes of Drāviḍa Brāhmaṇas:

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कर्णाटश्चैव तैलंगा (द्राविडा) गुर्जरा राष्ट्रवासिनः ।
आंध्राश्च द्राविडाः पंच विंध्यदक्षिणवासिनः ॥

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An inscription of 1425 A.D. speaks of four out of the five classes of Drāviḍa Brāhmaṇas as Kannaḍiga, Tamiḷa, Teḷuṅga and Iāḷa (i.e. Lāṭa=Gurjara).¹ Now these social groups of the Brāhmaṇas were developed out of the principal linguistic subdivisions of the people of South India. On the analogy of the above divisions, the North Indian Brāhmaṇas were also divided into five groups under the general name of Gauḍa. The *Śabdakalpadruma*, s. v. Gauḍa, quotes the following verse from the *Skanda Purāṇa*:

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¹ *South Indian Inscriptions*, Vol. I, pp. 82-84.

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सारस्वताः कान्यकुब्जा गौडमैथिलिकोत्कलाः ।
पंचगौडा इति ख्याता विध्यस्योत्तरवासिनः ॥

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The five classes of the Gauḍa or North Indian Brāhmaṇas were thus the Sārasvata (associated with the Sarasvatī valley in the Eastern Punjab), Kānyakubja, Gauḍa, Maithila and Utkala.² Although this seems to be a rather arbitrary classification, there is no doubt that the name Gauḍa has been applied in this case to North India generally. That the said classification is not very late is suggested by the mention of the Pañca-Gauḍīya community in an inscription of 926 A. D.³

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² Wilson's *Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms* gives an account of the Gauḍa Brāhmaṇas under the entries *Brāhman* and *Gauḍ*. Under *Gaur-Brāhman*, Wilson says, "The Brāhman of the Gaur tribe or caste; one of the five Gaurs, but located in the upper provinces throughout the Subah of Delhi to the hills. There are many sub-divisions of these Gaur-Brāhmaṇs of Hindustān, who are apparently unknown in Bengal, as the Ādh-Gaur, Kaithal-Gaur, Gūjar-Gaur, Sidh-Gaur, etc., amounting in all to forty-two." He also speaks of the Gaur Kāyath said to be settled from Bengal in the upper provinces by Nāṣir-ud-din (son of Balban) in the thirteenth century, Gaur-Rājpūt numerous in the North-Western Province (U. P.), Gaur-Tagā a tribe of Brāhmaṇical descent in the north-west of India, and Gaur-Thākur a tribe of Rājpūts settled in the Farrukhabad District. The Gaur-Tagās claim that they were originally invited from Bengal by Rājā Janamejaya, the Kaurava king of Hastināpura, for the purpose of exterminating the Takṣakas or snakes.

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³ *Cf. Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXXII, p. 48. See also the *Rājatarangiṇī* (*circa* 1150 A.D.), IV, 468.

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The application of the name Gauḍa in the general sense of Āryāvarta or North India can also be traced elsewhere in literature. There is a tradition regarding king Bhoja (*circa* 1010-55 A.D.) of the Paramāra dynasty of Malwa recorded in the following verse:

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पंचाशत्पंचवर्षाणि सप्तमासदिनत्रयम् ।
भोजराजेन भोक्तव्यः सगौडो दक्षिणपथः ॥⁴

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⁴ *Bhojaprabandha*, Calcutta ed., p.3; cf. Ray, *D.H.N.I.*, Vol.II, p. 858.

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According to this tradition, Bhoja ruled over both Gauḍa and Dakṣiṇāpatha for a little over 55 years. The real implication of the verse has so long been misunderstood by scholars. There is no doubt that it speaks of Bhoja’s lordship over Gauḍa in the sense of North India and over Dakṣiṇāpatha or South India; that is to say, Bhoja claimed to have ruled over the whole of India including both Northern and Southern India. This was merely the conventional way of saying that Bhoja was a *cakravartin*, i.e. an imperial ruler. The Indian *cakravartins* were conventionally represented as the ruler of the ‘whole earth’ which only meant the *cakravarti-kṣetra* bounded by the Himalayas and the sea. Sometimes Āryāvarta or North India was conceived as an independent *cakravarti-kṣetra* for North Indian rulers and South India bounded by the three seas (the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea) for the rulers of the Deccan.¹ In the verse quoted above, Bhoja is represented as the lord of both the *cakravarti-kṣetras* of the north and the south of India. Like similar claims of other monarchs, the claim on Bhoja’s behalf does not mean that the Paramāra king acutally ruled over any part of South India or over Gauḍa in Bengal in the narrow sense of the term. Here Bhoja merely claims to have been a *cakravartin* which means nothing more than an imperial ruler of any part of India.

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¹ For the conventional *cakravarti-kṣetras*, see *J.R.A.S.B.*, Letters, Vol. V, 1939, pp. 497 ff. See also above, pp. 15-16.

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