Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature c4.2

c4.2

Although the subject of my lectures, viz. *Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature*, is covered by a compulsory paper that is being offered by the candidates for the M. A. Examination in Ancient Indian History and Culture in the University of Calcutta for nearly half a century now, the only comprehensive work on it, so far as the textual material is concerned, is Willibald Kirfel's *Die Kosmographie der Inder*, Bonn, 1920 (cf. also his *Das Purāṇa vom Weltgebäude*: *Die Kosmographischen Traktate der Purāṇa's Versuch einer Textgeschichte*, Bonn, 1954), while foreign savants like Pargiter and Indian scholars like S. N. Majumdar-Sastri and H. C. Raychaudhuri, as is well known, have published the results of their valuable researches only on particular aspects of the problems. I remember today, with reverence and gratitude, my indebtedness to my teacher, the late Professor Raychaudhuri, for kindling my interest in the subject. My own small contribution to the elucidation of some of the problems, dedicated to his memory, is my *Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India*, Delhi, 1960.