Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature c7.s1.2

c7.s1.2

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.