Tulsi Prajna 1992 04

SR No.: 524570
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Parmeshwar Solanki
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
Publication Year: 1992
Total Pages: 130
Language: Hindi
Classification: Magazine, India_Tulsi Prajna, & India
File Size: 6 MB

Page 115

Vol. XVIII, No. 1
29
territories lying in the west of Prayaga on the bank of the Gangā were known as 'anugangā' or 'anugangam' during the reign of the Imperial Guptas. That does not, however, mean that 'anugangam' is identical with GANGARIDAI. The word GANGARIDAE or GANGARIDAI is used once by Curtius, twice by Justin and once by Diodorus and Ptolemy. Plutarch has GANDARITAI at one place and GANDARIDAI at the other. Diodorus uses GANGARIDAI once aná GANDARITAI thrice. Thus, even Diodorus who is the earliest of them, uses two forms of the name. 24 That shows the inability of the authors of the accounts to pick up the word and spell it correctly, So we have to look for a word in Sanskrit which could have got transformed in the three-fold manner mentioned above. Gangadvāriya is the only word we find. If the river Gangā flouring from north to south formed the eastern border of the nation, it must have included all the territories between the rivers Vipāśā and Gangā. "Gangādvāra' is the other word for Haridvāra and its neighbouring land and a Janapada could well have been named after it.
In this connection, we may refer to Dr. B.C. Law : "The Bhāgirathi is seen for the first time near GANGOTRI in the GARHWAL region. This combined course from Devaprayāga onwords is known as the Gangā, Its descent from Dehradun to Haridvāra is generally speedy and known as GANGĀDVĀRA. The flow of the Gangā is south wards from Haridvāra to Bulandashahar and then up to Prayāga where the Yamuna joins it, it flows to the south-east. It flows to the east from Allahabad to Rajmahal and then it turns to the south-east again (retranslated from Hindi)."'25 Thus, the south ward flow of the Gangā is from Haridvāra to Bulandshahar and that precisely forms the eastern border of the Ganga dvāriya” janapada of the times of Alexander. Curtius is, therefore, undoubtedly mistaken when he seems to place GANGARIDAE on the eastern bank of the Gangă with the Prasii. Diodorus, who is prior to him, mentions the eastern border of the GANGARIDAE clearly at one place but commits a similar mistake at the other. Such confusion seems to have arisen from corruption in the text. To insist upon placing GANGARIDAE on the eastern bank of the Bhāgirathi somewhere in or up to Bangladesh on the authority of Curtius and self-contradicting Diodorus, one must place Prachya-rāştra too on the same bank and there by exclude Pātaliputra from it which is sought to be identified with Palibothrus by the adherents of the current theories.
(to be continued)