The Philosophy of the Upanishads c10.s2.t5.2

c10.s2.t5.2

As concerns, to begin with, the geographical horizon, it is seen to be essentially limited by the ranges of the Himâlaya and Vindhya on the north and south,¹ and by the river basins and mouths of the Indus and Ganges on the west and east. Day is born in the ocean towards the east, night in the ocean towards the west.² “These streams, my dear sir, flow in the east towards the morning, and in the west towards the evening; from ocean to ocean they flow (uniting together), they become open sea.”³ What lies beyond these limits appears to be unknown. Only in a quite late Upanishad that is founded upon the Râmâyaṇa is mention made of Laṅkâ in (sic) Ceylon⁴ and similar names. But even the country of the Indus appears as almost unknown. Noble steeds are brought thence,⁵ perhaps salt also;⁶ the people of Gandhâra (west of the Indus, and south of Peshawar) appear in Chând. 6. 14 as distant; the Brahman students penetrate in their wanderings as far as the Madras (on the Hyphasis).⁷ Just as Yâjñavalkhya appears as the greatest personality in the Upanishads, so Janaka appears as the centre of the intellectual life of the court that surrounds him; he is king of Videha (north-east of Patna), where in Bṛih. 3. 1. 1 the Brâhmans also of the Kurus and Pañcâlas (who dwell farther west, between the Ganges and the Jumna) gather together to the great argumentative contest described in Bṛih. 3. 1–9. Together with these, reference is made to the courts of Ajātaśatru, king of Kāśi (around Benares),¹ and of Jīvala, king of the Pañcālas.² The Kekayas, on the upper course of the Hydraotes, as repositories of the knowledge stored up in the Upanishads, seem to belong to the far north-west; whose king Aśvapati imparts instruction on the Vaiśvānara to the six Brāhmans who approach him.³ Apart from these, in the enumeration in Kaush. 4. 1 of the peoples who have sought the renowned Vedic scholar Gārgya Bālāki, are named probably all the tribes who took an active part in the intellectual life of the period. They are these:—the Uśīnaras, Satvans, and Matsyas, west of the Jumna; the Kurus and Pañcālas between the Jumna and Ganges; the Kāśīs east of the latter, and still farther east the Videhas. No common name for the Āryan races or their country is found in the ancient Upanishads. In Nādabindu 12 for the first time *Bhāratam varsham* occurs as a name of Āryan India. The “five races of five”⁴ appear to denote merely the indefinite multitude⁵ of all the races of mankind.