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Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c9.s4: 4. Gauḍa as the Name of Āryāvarta or Northern India

Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c9.s4

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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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