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22 INDIA AS DESCRIBED IN EARLY
Kasi, Kosala and Vatsa in the west but excluded Avanti and Surasena. These two countries have been expressly excluded in the Vinaya Pitaka from the Middle country. Dr. Malalasekera has not cited any Pali authority justifying their inclusion in the Majjhimadesa.
The seven representative rivers of this division are enumerated in one list as Bāhukā (Bahukā),1 Adhikakkā, Gaya, Sundarika, Sarassati, Payāgā - and Bahumati, and in another list as Gangā, Yamuna, Sarabhu, Sarassati, Aciravati, Mahi and Mahanadi. The Jātaka mentions the Dona and Timbaru along with the Bahukā and Gaya. Here Bahuka is evidently the same river as Vāhudă in the Mahabharata,* which the Markandeya Purana connects with the Himalayas along with Ganga and Yamuna.5 The Adhikakka remains yet to be identified. The Gaya is no other than the Phalgu forming just a united flow of the Nerañjarā (Nairañjanā) of Buddhist fame and the Mahanadi (Mohānā of Brahmanical fame)." The Sundarika was a sacred river in Kosala. The Sarassati is identified with the famous Sarasvati which taking its rise in the Himalayas, disappears at
1 Jātaka, v, p. 389.
2 Viauddhimagga, i, p. 10.
* Jaka, Tp. 388f.
4 Mahabharata, iii, 84.67.
5 Markandeya Purana, Chap. 57.
6 Barua, Gaya and Buddhagaya, i, p. 87f.
