Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature c7.s1: 1. Bhārata-varṣa and its Ninth Subdivision

Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature c7.s1

Language: English

1. Bhārata-varṣa and its Ninth Subdivision

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We have seen above how the land bounded by the Himalayas in the north and the sea in the east, south and west was generally called Bhārata-varṣa, but that sometimes the names Jambu-dvīpa (of which the Bhārata-varṣa was the ninth part according to the Purāṇas) and Sāgarasaṃvṛta-dvīpa or Kumārī-dvīpa (which was likewise the ninth part of the Bhārata-varṣa according to the Purāṇas) were applied to the same region.

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The said tract was usually divided by Indian geographers into five divisions, viz. (1) Madhya-deśa in the central area of Northern India between the Himalayas in the north and the Vindhyas in the south and between a place in the Eastern Punjab (e.g. Adarśana or Vinaśana in the Kurukṣetra area in the Ambala District, or Pṛthūdaka or Pehoa in the west and another in Eastern U. P. (e.g. Kālakavana or Prayāga near Allahabad, or Vārāṇasi according to Rājaśekhara) in the east, though the Buddhists pushed the boundary further east to Kajaṅgala in East Bihar or to Puṇḍravardhana in North Bengal ; (2) Prācya or Pūrva-deśa lying to the east of the Madhya-deśa ; (3) Aparānta, Pāścātya or Paścād-deśa to the west of the Madhya-deśa (to the west of Devasabhā, modern Dewas near Ujjain, according to Rājaśekhara) ; (4) Udīcya or Uttarāpatha comprising the north-western regions of the Indian sub-continent (beyond the Karnal-Ambala area of the Eastern Punjab) and the contiguous parts of Central Asia and taken to have included the Himalayan region ; and (5) Dakṣiṇāpatha or Dākṣiṇātya comprising the whole of South India to the south of the Vindhyas, the boundary being sometimes specified as the river Narmadā (beyond Māhiṣmati on the Narmadā according to Rājaśekhara). To this list of five, the Puranic section on the janapadas adds the following two, viz. (1) Parvatāśraya or the Himalayan region (often included in Udīcya or Uttarāpatha), and (2) Vindhya-pṛṣṭha or the Vindhyan region (often included partly in the various contiguous divisions). Sometimes Āryāvarta or the whole land to the north of Dākṣiṇāpatha was called Uttarāpatha.

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Besides the Varṣa-parvata entitled Himavat, the said tract had seven other great mountain ranges known as Kul-ācala or Kula-parvata. The seven Kula mountains are—(1) Mahendra (Eastern Ghāṭs), (2) Malaya (Travancore hills and the southern fringes of the Western Ghāṭs), (3) Sahya (the Western Ghāṭs to the north of the Malaya), (4) Śuktimat (parts of the Vindhyan range including the Sakti hills in Eastern M. P.), (5) Ṛkṣavat (parts of the Vindhyan range to the south of Malwa), (6) Vindhya (the Vindhyan range, extending from Gujarat to Bihar, but sometimes used in a restricted sense with the exclusion of the portions covered by the Śuktimat, Ṛkṣavat and Pāriyātra), and (7) Pāriyātra or Pāripātra (Western Vindhyas including the Aravali range). They were inhabited by kulas (tribes).

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In the geographical section of several Purāṇas, there are two lists, one of the janapadas of the above-mentioned seven divisions of India and the second enumerating the rivers issuing from the Varṣa-parvata and the seven Kula mountains. These sections, especially the longer lists of the janapadas and rivers, as found in the Brahmāṇḍa, Mārkaṇḍeya, Matsya, Vāmana and Vāyu Purāṇas, practically follow the same draft. There is likewise condensed lists of janapadas and rivers in some of the Purāṇas like the Viṣṇu. We have discussed the subject of these lists elsewhere¹ and come to the following conclusions. The original draft of the bigger lists seems to have been compiled for the Matsya. The Mārkaṇḍeya probably copied the text from the Vāyu at a slightly later date, though a little independence of the copyist in the arrangement of names in a few cases is noticed in this text. The Brahmāṇḍa furnishes us with a still later copy of the Vāyu text. The date of this copy may not be far removed from the time of Al-Bīrūnī (c. 1030 A.D.) who is known to have consulted a manuscript of the Vāyu in giving the list of peoples after the Purāṇas. The Kūrma, which like some other Purāṇas copies the smaller draft of the janapada list from the Viṣṇu, has a fuller list of rivers probably after the Vāyu. The smaller drafts of peoples and rivers appear to have been compiled from the bigger drafts in the Matsya and Vāyu for the first time for Viṣṇu. Like the Brahmāṇḍa, the Kūrma text does not appear to be far removed in point of time from the date of Al-Bīrūnī. The Vāmana appears, however, to be the latest copy of the modified draft as found in the other texts. But, in several cases, the compiler of the Vāmana lists shows a tendency to arrange the names rather independently, even though in many cases he does not go much beyond the originals before him. The new readings introduced by later copyists of the original draft or its modifications appear to have been, in some cases at least, offered by way of improvement or correction, and it is sometimes difficult to determine the reading of the original draft from it. The fact however that even the late Vāmana often leaves the mistakes of the other copies as they are probably points to the absence of any determined and persistent effort on the part of the copyists to deviate from the texts before them. It should be remembered that numerous mistakes had already crept into the Vāyu text as early as c. 1030 A.D. when Al-Birūnī consulted a Vāyu manuscript. The geographical section of the Garuḍa exhibits considerable freedom, though it seems to have utilised the Mārkaṇḍeya section known as the Kūrma-vibhāga. The date of the Garuḍa section as also the corresponding section in the Śiva, seems to be close to that of the Vāmana, since they all add to the old description of the Kumārī-dvīpa (as having the Kirātas in the east and the Yavanas in the west) a new line placing the Turuṣkas (the Turkish Muhammadans) in the north and the Andhras (probably the Kākatīyas) in the south, which suggests a date not much earlier than the 13th century A.D.

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¹ Stud. Geog. Anc. Med. Ind., pp. 19-20.

Linked texts (1)

Purāṇa — Sanskrit