Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature c6.s2.19

c6.s2.19

We have seen that the later Vedic literature places the land of the Uttara-Kuru beyond the Himavat apparently in the region of Central Asia, though gradually they came to be regarded as inhabiting the land of the gods probably about the Meru mountain near the Central Asian deserts and also as a mythical or semi-mythical people whose country was a sort of El Dorado. The name Uttara-Kuru, called Ottorokorha by Ptolemy, has thus a somewhat historical basis. If however the northern island included the Uttara-Kuru land in Central Asia, the southern island, called Jambu-dvīpa, would practically be identical with the Indian sub-continent together with the Himalayan range even if the epico-Puranic tradition would not have often applied the name Bhārata to the same island.