Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature c6.s1: 1. Date and Nature of the Epico-Puranic Traditions

Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature c6.s1

Language
English

1. Date and Nature of the Epico-Puranic Traditions

c6.s1.1

The question of the date of the geographical sections in the Purāṇas is related to the knowledge of the country they exhibit. We have referred above to the later Vedic conception of the Indian Ekarāṭ (sole monarch) ruling over the whole earth bounded by the ocean—from one end to the other, which we have explained as an indirect allusion to the Śaiśunāga empire of Magadha extending from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea. This idea may, however, indicate some vague knowledge of the Indian subcontinent bounded by the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea and the deserts (sand-ocean) of Central Asia, though there is no indication of any specific knowledge of territories in all the outlying regions of India. It is doubtful whether precise information about all the areas of the south and of the extreme east was available to the later Vedic writers. They did not even have any name for the whole country unless they called it ‘the earth’, even though Aśoka (third century B.C.) refers to his empire covering practically the whole of the Indian subcontinent and parts of Afghanistan as both Pṛthivī and Jambu-dvīpa,¹ and, during the later ages, the name Jambu-dvīpa was often used to indicate both India and the earth. In the Pali Buddhist literature, Jambu-dvīpa, is sometimes the name of the Indian subcontinent which then included parts of Central Asia.² The Mahābhārata and the Purāṇas often call it Bhārata-varṣa and Sāgarasamvṛta-dvīpa (Kumārī-dvīpa of later writers) as we shall see below.8 These Indian names indicated the Indian subcontinent together with the contiguous areas of Central Asia. The earliest epigraphic reference to the name Bhārata-varṣa is however found in the Hathigumpha inscription of Khāravela who flourished in Orissa during the latter half of the first century B.C.4 The Jain writers call the land Bharata instead of Bhārata.

c6.s1.2

¹ See Sircar, Select Inscriptions, p. 24, note 6 ; p. 50. Jambu is also spelt Jambū.

c6.s1.3

² Cf. Childers, Pali-Eng. Dict., s. v. Jambu-dīpo. In passages like Jambu-dīpe Sāgala-nagare Milindo nāma rājā ahosi (Milindapañha—“There was a king named Milinda at the city of Śākala in Jambu-dvīpa”), Jambu-dipasmim kira pubbe mahānidāgho ahosi (Childers, op. cit., s. v. pubba—“It is said that there was once

c6.s1.4

As late as the fifth century B.C. when Pāṇini wrote his Aṣṭādhyāyī at Śālā-tūra in the Peshawar region, the people of North-Western India had little knowledge of the south and the extreme east, though later Vedic texts composed in the central region of India exhibit, as we have seen above, some knowledge of East India excluding Assam. In the fourth century B.C., Kātyāyana’s vārttikas mention the Cola and Pāṇḍya peoples of the extreme south. Indeed, Kātyāyana’s derivation of the name Pāṇḍya from Pāṇḍu and Megasthenes’ reference to the confused story of Herakles (Kṛṣṇa-Vāsudeva) and Pandaea suggest that the Pāṇḍyas were migrants to the Madurai (Mathurā, the Mathurā of the South) region from Northern India. The inscriptions of Aśoka mention Cola, Pāṇḍya, Kerala and even Tāmraparṇī

c6.s1.5

a great drought in Jambu-dvīpa”), etc., the reference is no doubt to the subcontinent; cf. Jambu opposed to Simhala. Śākala is modern Sialkot in West Pakistan. 3. The river-name Sindhu (the Indus) became Hindu to the Iranians who used the word to indicate the people of the Sindhu valley at least as early as the sixth century B.C. The same word became Indu (Indus) to the Greeks who called the said people Indian and their country India from the days of Herodotus (484-424 B.C.), though the name was applied by the Greeks to the Indian subcontinent occasionally from the time of Megasthenes who lived for sometime at the court of Candragupta Maurya (c. 324-299 B.C.). Megasthenes mentions Palimbothra (Pāṭaliputra, the capital of Candragupta Maurya) in the land of the Prasians (Prācya) as ‘the largest city of India’. Later writers sometimes confused the two senses of India. The Chinese name of India, variously written as Shen-tu, Hsien-tou and Yin-tu, is also derived from Sindhu, though Yin-tu was sometimes wrongly associated with Sanskrit indu (moon). The Chinese sometimes mentioned India as Si-fang (the west), Wu-t’ian (the Five Indies), A-li-ya-t’i-sha (Ārya-deśa), Po-lo-men-kuo (Brāhmaṇa-deśa) and Indravardhana. The Muslim writers mentioned India as Hindu-stān which meant (1) the upper basin of the Ganges, (2) North India, or (3) India. Cf. Raychaudhuri, Stud. Ind. Ant., pp. 78ff., 80; PHAI, 1938, p. 223.
4. Select Inscriptions, p. 209.

c6.s1.6

(Ceylon).⁵ The canonical works of the Buddhists and the Jains, probably composed in the age of the Mauryas and Śuṅgas, give a list of 16 *Mahā-janapadas* or great states of the Indian sub-continent and its north-western neighbourhood, compiled from the angle of the writers of Bihar and Eastern U. P. which were the field of activities of the Buddha and Mahāvīra. These include some kingdoms, of the east and south, which were supposed to have flourished in the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. during the age of the Buddha and Mahāvīra.⁶

c6.s1.7

⁵ Cf.. R.G. Bhandarkar, *E. Hist. Dec.*, pp. 11ff. ; Raychaudhuri, *PHAI*, 1938, pp. 271-72 ; Sircar, *Stud. Geog. Anc. Med. Ind.*, p. 111. Pandaea is said to have been the daughter and wife of Herakles who made her the queen of the southern part of India. See R. C. Majumdar, *The Classical Accounts of India*, pp. 222-23, 456. The Aśokan records also mention Sātiya, probably the Śāntika of the Purāṇas.

c6.s1.8

⁶ The list of the Buddhist *Aṅguttaranikāya* has the following names : (1) Kāśi (capital—Vārāṇasi in Eastern U.P.) ; (2) Kosala (capital—Śrāvastī, modern Set-Mahet on the borders of the Gonda and Bahraich Districts of U.P.) ; (3) Aṅga (capital—Campā on the Mālinī, located near Bhagalpur in Bihar) ; (4) Magadha (capital—first at Girivraja and later at Rājagṛha, modern Rajgir in the Patna District of Bihar, in the suburbs of Girivraja) ; (5) the Vṛji Confederacy of 8 clans (capital—Vaiśālī, modern Besarh in the Muzaffarpur District, North Bihar) ; (6) the Malla Republic (capitals—Kuśinagara and Pāvā, modern Kasia and Padaraona respectively, in the Deoria District of U.P.) ; (7) Cedi (capital—Śuktimatī near modern Banda in Southern U.P.) ; (8) Vatsa (capital—Kauśāmbī, modern Kosam, near Allahabad, U.P.) ; (9) Kuru (capital—Hastināpura in the Meerut District, U.P., with another at Indraprastha in the suburbs of Delhi) ; (10) Pañcāla (modern Rohilkhand and a part of the Central Doab in U.P. ;

c6.s1.9

The Jambukhaṇḍavirmāṇa-parvan and Bhūmi-parvan incorporated in the Bhīṣma-parvan of the *Mahābhārata* and the Bhuvanavinyāsa and Kūrmavibhāga (Kūrmaniyeśa) sections in some of the Purāṇas offer lists of the mountains, rivers and countries of all the regions of the Indian subcontinent including parts of Central Asia, although they do not exhibit any considerable knowledge of the territories outside the said area. The compilation of the earlier drafts of such sections may be assigned to the early centuries of the Christian era while the cosmographical speculations contained therein appear to have developed a few centuries earlier.

c6.s1.10

That the conception of the earth was not quite intelligible even to the authors of the epico-Puranic sections on cosmography seems to be clear from a statement that it is useless for men to offer arguments to prove or disprove anything in the description of the earth comprising the island continents, etc., that conceptions which are beyond the scope of human thinking should not be the subject of any argument and that such matters beyond the sphere of nature should be taken for granted.⁷

c6.s1.11

⁷ Cf. *Vāyu Purāṇa*, 34. 7-8 :

c6.s1.12

It has also to be pointed out that the cosmographical sections especially in the Purāṇas often contain confused and conflicting statements. Thus, sometimes in the same work, e.g. in the *Vāyu Purāṇa*, the earth is described as consisting of four island-continents as well as of seven such continents.⁸ Another instance of

c6.s1.13

⁸ 33. 4 (*pṛthivī sarvā sapta-dvīpa-samanvitā*), 24 (*sapta-dvīpa-nivāsibhiḥ*), 31 (*sapta-dvīpe tu vakṣyāmi*); 34. 7 (*sapta-dvīpaṃ tu vakṣyāmi*); 46 (*mahādvīpās=tu*

c6.s1.14

capital—Ahicchatra, modern Ramnagar in the Bareilly District, in the north, and Kāmpilya, modern Kampil in the Farrukhabad District, in the south); (11) Matsya (capital—Virāṭanagara, modern Bairat in the Jaipur Division of Rajasthan); (12) Sūrasena (capital—Mathurā, U.P.); (13) Aśmaka (capital—Paudanya, modern Bodhan on the Godāvarī in the Nizamabad District, Andhra Pradesh); (14) Avanti (capital—Ujjayinī in the Gwalior tract of Madhya Pradesh); (15) Kamboja (probably in the Kandahar region of Afghanistan); and (16) Gandhāra (capitals—Takṣaśilā and Puṣkalāvatī, respectively near Rawalpindi and Peshawar in West Pakistan). Campā, Rājagṛha, Śrāvastī, Sāketa, Kauśāmbī and Vārāṇasī were great cities. The Jain *Bhagavatī-sūtra* mentions: (1) Aṅga, (2) Vaṅga, Magadha, (4) Malaya (Travancore hills); (5) Mālavaka (Malloi of the Greeks about the Montgomery District, West Pakistan); (6) Ṛkṣa (the Vindhyan region to the south of Malwa); (7) Vatsa; (8) Koccha (Kaccha ?); (9) Paḍha (Pāṇḍya ?); (10) Rāḍha (the Burdwan region of West Bengal); (11) Vṛji; (12) Moli (Malla ?); (13) Kāśi; (14) Kosala; (15) Avaha (?); and (6) Sambhuttara (Suhmottara or Brahmottara in West Bengal ?). See Raychaudhuri, *PHAI*, 1938, pp. 81ff. ; W. Kirfel, *Die Kosmographie der Inder*, p. 225 ; also *infra*.

c6.s1.15

Sapta-dvīpaṃ tu vakṣyāmi candr-āditya-grahaiḥ saha |
yeṣāṃ manuṣyās=tarkeṇa pramāṇāni pracakṣate ||
acintyāḥ khalu ye bhāvā na tāmṣ=tarkeṇa bhāvayet |
prakṛtibhyaḥ paraṃ yac=ca tan=nityañ=ca pracakṣate ||

c6.s1.16

Cf. *Mahābhārata*, vi. 5. 11-12.

c6.s1.17

confusion is exhibited by the representation of the Bhārata-varṣa sometimes as a part of the Jambu-dvīpa, and sometimes as identical with the latter. Likewise, the Sāgarasamvṛta-dvīpa, said to be the ninth part of the Bhārata-varṣa, is regarded also as co-terminous with the whole of the Indian subcontinent (together with parts of Central Asia) lying to the south of the Himalayan region.

c6.s1.18

The same confusion characterises the shape of the Meru region called the pericarp of the earth-lotus by the Puranic chroniclers. Thus it is said that the area in question was hundred-sided according to Atri, thousand-sided according to Bhṛgu, eight-sided according to Sāvarṇi, four-sided according to Bhāguri, ocean-shaped according to Vārṣāyaṇi, bowl-shaped according to Gālava, of the shape of a top-hair-knot according to Gārgya and circular according to Kroṣṭuki.⁹ The Puranic chroniclers believed that such divergence of opinion was due to the sages having knowledge only of parts of the region while the god Brahman alone was believed to have had full knowledge about it.

c6.s1.19

⁹ Cf. Vāyu Purāṇa, 34. 62-64.

c6.s1.20

The origin of the name Bhārata-varṣa offers another instance of the diversity of traditions. According to many of the Purāṇas, the name was derived from Bharata, son of Ṛṣabha and grandson of Nābhi who was a descendant of Vaivasvata Manu,¹⁰ while certain other Puranic passages represent Bharata as the second name of Manu himself.¹¹ But the Bhārati-prajā or Bhārati-santati (the people of Bhārata or the Bhārata-varṣa) of other Puranic passages appear to mean the Bhārata people, reminiscent of the Bharata tribe of the Ṛgveda, the Mahābhārata representing them as the descendants of Bharata who was the son of Duṣyanta and is said to have become a Cakravartin or Sārvabhauma (universal monarch).¹² There are legends according to which Bharata conquered the whole earth and the dominions of that

c6.s1.21

¹⁰ Ibid., 33. 52ff. ; Bhāgavata Purāṇa, xi. 2. 15ff. ; Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa, 34. 44ff. ; etc.

c6.s1.22

¹¹ Vāyu Purāṇa, 45, 76; Matsya Purāṇa, 99. 5 ; Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa, 49. 10.

c6.s1.23

¹² Raychaudhuri, Stud. Ind. Ant., p. 79 ; Mahābhārata i. 73. 129 ; cf. Bhāgavata Purāṇa, ix. 20. 33.

c6.s1.24

vikhyātāś=catvāraḥ, 55-56(catvāro yasya vai deśāḥ) ; 41. 83 (catur-mahādvīpavatī s=eyam=urvī), 85 (catvāro n-aika-varṇ-āḍhyā mahādvīpāḥ), 86 (catur-mahādvīpā nānā-dvīpa-samākulā pṛthivī) ; 42. 79-80 (pṛthivī...catur-mahādvīpavatī). The word dvīpa is often explained as the land having a watercourse each on its two sides (Brahmāṇḍa, 53. 140 : dvir-āpastvāt=smṛto dvipaḥ). Cf. Raychaudhuri, op. cit., p. 68, note 5.

c6.s1.25

king and his descendants, the Bhāratas, extended over the same region which is found to be called Bhārata-varṣa.¹⁸

c6.s1.26

¹⁸ See below.

Linked texts (9)