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xxxiii
artt, and nas.
Documentary evidence as gathered from Vāştu Săstras points irresistibly to the fact that India wis divided geograpbically as well as po rically into three main divisions as under: Northernmost division extended from the Himalayas to thc Vindhya ranges. The middle zone comprised of a tract of country lying between the Vindhya ranges and the Godavart on the one side and Krsnā on the other, and the Southernmost zone extended froin the Krsnā to Cape Comorin, the southern extremity of India, These zones were known as a fit, a9 and fas respectively. The 17t division included all those people whose Inother-tongue is Hindi, Gujarāti, Punjabi, Magadbi, Bengali, etc., with Sanskrit, Nāgari and Deva Nagari, as their scripts. The country known as ala was the original home of these races. They, agreeably to the exigencies of the times, spread over at different times in history and in different batches, small or great, into Gujarat, Mälwā, Lata and fra on the south and 199, an, etc., on the east. Similarly, the middle zone known as the included in its boundaries the f2p, sig, etc. The people of this zone sperk al. and the list and southernmost division sites includes the Tamil-speaking races. Kerala forins a part of this. The Dravidian territory includes the Northern half of Ceylon and extends northward upto an irregular line drawn froin a point on the Arabian Sea about 1000 miles south of Goa along the Western Ghats as far as Kolhapur, then north-east through Hyderabad and further castwards to the Biy of Bengal. The old eat or Telugu country covers about 8000 sq. miles and is bounded on the east by the Bay of Bengal, on the north by the river Godāyart and on the south by the Krsna (Preface of Dr. Burnett, Catalogue of Telugu Works).
a1T (J. A. S. B. Vol. LXV, part 7, pp. 116-117):
" It is clear froin the references that are was formerly the capital of Birbhum in Bengal, that the #196 is the name of a famous part in Tanjore, that it is the name of an extensive diyision in Mysore, that the town named afti and an ancient place called ants are situated on the Bias in the district of Kängrā in the Punjab; that we find alata in Dharbhanga ; that the town 17 in Sindh and Finals in the district of Basti; that there is a number of ancient villages in the Deccan called Art and that ati is the name of two rivers in North Bengal, the name of a village in the District of Dacca, and that of some nine or ten places called 279 in Rajpulāna; there are towns; that a fortified village in the Santal Paragaga is called TT.The ancient Ef which was once besieged by Menander is now called in near faas. Hieun Thsang also mentions anti (modern 75131af) which was a province of ancient Kapisa (Kadphisa) the people whereof were the followers of Buddha."
" The ants are mentioned in the lists of countries and peoples in anafazia, gafe 960 as a people. The same list refers to the Dravidas as a people living south of the Mount 1993 below the river
279, y
