Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature c8.s5: V. Cosmography and Geography in Inscriptions

Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature c8.s5

Language: English

V. Cosmography and Geography in Inscriptions

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It is well known that the provenance of coins and inscriptions helped scholars in determining the sites of the ancient cities of Kapilavastu (near Lumbinīgrāma), Puṇḍranagara, Kauśāmbī, Śrāvastī, Karṇasuvarṇa, Madhyamikā, etc.²⁰ The location of the Buddha's birth place, viz. Lumbinīgrāma on the suburbs of the Śākya city of Kapilavastu, has been indicated by the discovery of a monolithic pillar near the village of Paḍariā within the Nepalese Tarai to the north of the Basti District of U.P. The pillar bears an inscription of the Maurya emperor Aśoka (c. 259-232 B.C.) who is stated in it to have raised the pillar at Lumbinīgrāma, the birthplace of the Lord Buddha Śākyamuni, after having offered worship at the holy place. The location of the city of the Puṇḍra people was disputed. Cunningham suggested its identification with modern Mahāsthān in the Bogra District of North Bengal. This identification has now been proved beyond doubt by the discovery of an early Brāhmī inscription from Mahāsthān, which mentions the locality as Puṇḍranagara. There was likewise controversy among scholars about the location of Kauśāmbī, the capital of the ancient Vatsa king Udayana, and that of Karṇasuvarṇa, the capital of Śaśāṅka, the 7th century king of Gauḍa, beeause literary evidence on the subjects was inadequate. But recent excavations have unearthed positive evidence that has solved this problem. A stone slab

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²⁰ See *Indian Museum Bulletin*, No. 1, p. 16; cf. also Majumdar Sastri, Cunningham's *Ancient Geography of India*, pp. li-lii. The archaeologists' spade has laid bare the ruins of such great cities as Takṣaśilā in the Rawalpindi District, Vidiśā in the Bhilsa District, Vijayapurī in the Guntur District and many others. The ruins of Takṣaśilā hold out before us a picture of ancient Indian city life which no literary work could have supplied.

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1. Tree of Prayāga 25°, 106° 20′; 2. Kuraha 26° 1′, 106° 40′; 3. Tiauri 23°, 106° 30′; 4. Kajurāha 24° 4′, 106° 50′; 5. Bazāna or Nārāyan 24° 35′, 106° 10′; 6. Kannakara 22° 20′, 107°; 7. Sharvār 24° 15′, 107° 50′; 8. Pāṭaliputra 22° 30′, 108° 20′; 9. Mungirī 22°, 109° 10′; 10. Dūgum 22° 40′, 110° 50′; 11. Bārī 26° 30′, 105° 50′; 12. Dūdahi 25° 40′, 102° 10′; 13. Dahmāla 31° 10′, 100° 55′; 14. Shirshāraha 38° 50′, 102° 10′; 15. Bhillamāla 23°, 50′ 87° 45′; 16. Bamhanvā 26° 40′, 85°; 17. Loharānī 24° 40′, 84° 25′; 18. Daibal 24° 10′, 82° 30′; 19. Bhātiya 28° 40′, 96°; 20. Ūjain 24°, 100° 50′; 21. Tiz 26° 15′, 83° 25′; 22. Tanjore 15°, 115°; 23. Rameshar 13°, 118°; 24. Jahrāvar 39° 50′, 96° 15′. See Sachau, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 317.

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bearing an inscription below the representation of the foot-marks of the Buddha was discovered at Kosam (about 35 miles from Allahabad) and it says that the slab was installed in the Ghoṣitārāma which was situated in the city of Kauśāmbi as we know from various other sources. Modern Kosam therefore stands on the site of ancient Kauśāmbi. The location of the city of Karṇasuvarṇa on the site of modern Rāṅgāmāṭi near the Chiruti railway station in the Murshidabad District of West Bengal has been similarly proved by the discovery of a few seals of the Raktamṛttikā monastery which the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen-tsang found in the suburbs of the capital of Śaśāṅka's kingdom. In the same way, certain Buddhist stone relics of the Kuṣāṇa age, unearthed at Set-Mahet on the borders of the Gonda and Bahraich Districts of U.P., bear inscriptions stating that they were raised in religious establishments at Śrāvastī, the ancient capital of the Kosala kingdom.²¹

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²¹ As regards the contribution of numismatics to the study of ancient Indian geography, reference may be made to the discovery of the coins of the Śibi republic, minted at Madhyamikā, at a place called Nagari near Chitodgadh in Rajasthan. This helped scholars in suggesting that Nagari is just the latter part of the old name Madhyamikā-nagarī as Purī is that of Puruṣottama-purī or Jagannātha-purī.

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As regards cosmography, there are a few inscriptions representing a particular locality as situated in the central one of the 14 worlds. Thus Banavāsi is represented as the chief city of the Kuntala country in the land of Bhārata lying to the south of the Golden Mountain (Meru) in the centre of the middle world which is one of the 14 worlds. Likewise the tract of Warangal in the kingdom of Humāyūn Shāh of Gulbarga is stated to have been lying in the western tract of the Āndhra country which formed a part of the Bhārata-varṣa in the Jambu-dvīpa section of the earth. Sometimes the Bhārata-varṣa is described as one of the nine divisions of the Jambu-dvīpa surrounded by the Sea of Salt and as extending from the Himācala to the South Sea.²²

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²² Cf. Ep. Ind., Vol. xxxii, p. 260 ; Vol. xxxiii, p. 127 : etc. The 14 worlds are sometimes enumerated as 1. Bhūr-loka (our earth), 2. Bhuvar-loka, 3. Svar-loka, 4. Mahar-loka, 5. Janar-loka, 6. Tapar-loka, 7. Satya-loka or Brahma-loka, 8. Atala, 9. Vitala, 10. Sutala, 11. Rasātala, 12. Talātala, 13. Mahātala and 14. Pātāla, Nos. 2-7 being higher regions rising from the earth (No. 1) one above the other and Nos. 8-14 lower regions descending from the earth one below the other. See Apte, Sans. Eng. Dict., s.v. loka.

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The conception of the Cakravarti-kṣetra is noticed in numerous inscriptions. Among early records of this type, mention may be made of the Meharauli pillar inscription²³ of Candra (Candragupta II, 376-413 A.D.) and the Mandasor pillar inscription²⁴ of Yaśodharman Viṣṇuvardhana (c. 520-40 A.D.). The military exploits of Candra are said to have covered the land bounded by the territory of the Vaṅgas in the east, the seven mouths of the Sindhu in the west, the country of the Vāhlikas in the north and the Southern (Indian) Ocean in the south, while Yaśodharman is said to have been ruling over the area bounded in the east, south, north and west respectively by the Lauhitya (Brahmaputra), the Mahendra (in this case, particularly the Mahendragiri in the Tirunelveli District, Madras), the Tuhinaśikharin (Himālaya) and the Western Ocean (Arabian Sea). These are of course conventional claims having really no historical basis.²⁵

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²³ Sircar, Select Inscriptions, 1965, pp. 283-84.

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²⁴ Ibid., p. 419.

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²⁵ See Sircar, Stud. Geog. Anc. Med. Ind., pp. 8ff.

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There was a modified conception of the Cakravarti-kṣetra, which regarded South India as the sphere of influence of the South Indian rulers and North India as that of the North Indian kings. The earliest reference to South India as a Cakravarti-kṣetra is found in the Nasik praśasti²⁶ of Gautamīputra Śātakarṇi (c. 106-30 A.D.) of the Śātavāhana dynasty. The conventional nature of this king's claim to have been the lord of the Vindhya, Pāriyātra, Ṛkṣavat, Sahya, Malaya and Mahendra mountains²⁷ and to have led his horses to the three seas (Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean) is demonstrated by the fact that the list of the territories in his kingdom noticed in the same record indicates only a tract in the western region of India between Ṛṣika on the Kṛṣṇā river in the south and Ākara and Avanti (East and West Malwa) in the north. The same conclusion regarding the nature of the claims is supported by the Pāla inscriptions, which king Devapāla (c. 810-50 A.D.) is once represented as the undisputed lord of the whole earth bounded by the source of the Gaṅgā (Himālaya), Rāma’s Bridge (Setubandha Rāmeśvara), the Eastern Ocean and the Western Ocean, while elsewhere the same king is said to have ruled over the earth bounded in the north by the Father of Gaurī (Himālaya) and in the south by Revā’s Father (Vindhya).²⁸

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²⁶ Ibid., pp. 203ff. The inscription of the Cālukyas of Bādāmi represent them as ‘the lords of the whole earth bounded by the three Seas’ (Sircar, Stud. Geog. Anc. Med. Ind., p. 15).

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²⁷ The absence of the Śuktimat from this list of the Kula-parvatas seems to suggest that its identity was not well known even to some ancient authors or that parts of the eastern Vindhyas were purposely omitted from the sphere of Gautamīputra’s political influence.

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²⁸ Cf. Sircar, Stud. Geog. Anc. Med. Ind., p. 11 (note 1), p. 14 (note 1).

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Like the list of territories in Gautamīputra Śātakarṇi’s kingdom as found in the Nasik praśasti, another valuable list of the lands forming parts of the dominions of Śaka Rudradāman (130-50 A.D.) is offered by the Junāgaḍh inscription.²⁹ The Allāhābād pillar inscription³⁰ of Samudragupta (c. 335-76 A. D.) contains a large number of geographical names, such as the lands of his adversaries in Dakṣiṇāpatha, the pratyanta countries bordering on his empire and the states offering him submission, some of which (e.g. the land of Davāka apparently in Eastern India) are not found in any other source. In the description of the military exploits of the royal heroes, geographical names generally occur, e.g., the Tirumalai rock inscription³¹ of Rājendra-cola specially mentions the achievements of the Cola army in Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Bengal and of the Cola navy in the lands in and beyond the Bay of Bengal.

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²⁹ Select Inscriptions, op. cit., p. 178. The Khajuraho inscription of Candella Dhaṅga (953-1002 A.D.) indicates the extent of his kingdom as bounded by Kālañjara, Bhāsvat (Bhayilla-svāmin, Bhilsa) on the Mālava-nadī, (Vetravatī or Betwa) Kālindī-taṭa, Cedi-deśa and Gopagiri (Ray, DHNI, Vol. ii, p. 678).

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³⁰ Sel. Ins., pp. 263ff.

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³¹ Ep. Ind., Vol. ix, pp. 229 ff. Cf. above, p. 67, note 114.

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The copper-plate grants sometimes record the places of their issue, and the gift land or village is often mentioned therein along with the name of the district in which it was situated and the names of the villages lying on its boundaries. A study of a number of epigraphs mentioning localities situated in the same tract sometimes helps us in forming an idea about its extent. Thus the bhukti or province of Puṇḍravardhana, which had its headquarters at Puṇḍranagara or Puṇḍravardhana (modern Mahāsthān in the Bogra District, East Pakistan) and originally covered wide areas of North Bengal, is later found to include not only the Dacca, Tippera and Sylhet regions of East Bengal, but even the 24 Parganas District of South Bengal.³²

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³² See Hist. Beng., Vol. i, ed. Majumdar, pp. 24-25 ; N. K. Bhattsali Com. Vol., p. 173.

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The Brāhmaṇa donees of the copper-plate grants were often mentioned as hailing from localities where their families originally flourished. Such information and similar other facts recorded in inscriptions give us an idea about the migration of people from one part of the country to another. Thus the Kolagallu and Kuḍatini inscriptions,³³ found in the Bellary region of Mysore, show how the Brāhmaṇa Gadādhara of Taḍāgrāma (near Dinajpur in North Bengal) situated in Varendrī, watered by the Gaṅgā and forming a part of the Gauḍa country, settled in the south. The said epigraphs and others also suggest that the area called Pāhuni-yojana in the Hili-Bālurghāṭ region of North Bengal later became famous as Śrāvasti as a result of the settlement of a large number of Brāhmaṇas from Śrāvasti in U. P.³⁴