Epigraphia Indica Vol 20

Author(s): Hirananda Shastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 19

8
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XX.
regions which used to be visited for purposes of trade. In these two passages the first countries mentioned are Saka-Yavana and China-Chiläta. The printed text has Viläta, but, as has been pointed out by Professor Sylvain Lévi, this is an error for Chilāta. The Chilātas are the same un-Aryan tribe often met with in Sanskrit literature under the name of Kirata. In a well-known verse of the Panchatantra they are characterized as dishonest traders. We find them, moreover, referred to both in the Periplus and by Ptolemy. The former says: "Beyond this [Dosarenē], the course trending towards the north there are many barbarous tribes, among whom are the Cirrhadæ, a race of men with flattened noses, very savage." Ptolemy locates them along the Gulf of Bengal, "beyond the Ganges mouth called Antibolei." Their country is said to produce the best malabathron (tamalapattram). In his chapter on Trans-Gangetic India (VII, 2; 15) the same author describes the Tiládai (V. 1. Piládai), also called the Saesádai, as hairy dwarfs, with a flat face and a white skin. Evidently this passage too refers to the Kiratas, the name Tiládai (Tiλádat) being an attempt to render in Greek the alternative form Chilada."
It is very interesting to meet here with the name Tosali. It will be remembered that Aśoka's two separate Rock-Edicts of Dhauli are addressed to the Governor and the magistrates (Mahāmātras) of Tosali. "This enables us to locate Tosali in Kalinga: James Prinsep identified it with the "Tosalei metropolis" of Ptolemy, although this place is located in the fegions beyond the Ganges. We may, perhaps, connect the name Tosali with the Dosara of Ptolemy and with Dōsarēnē, the name of a country beyond Masalia mentioned in the Periplus. The name Dōsarenē is usually explained to be the Greek rendering of Sanskrit Daśārņa, but there are serious difficulties in the way of this identification. First of all, a Prakrit form of Daśārņa, from which the Greek form must be derived, would certainly not have retained the r which we find in Dōsara and Dōsarënë. The long ō-vowel of the Greek would also be difficult to account for. Besides, the tribe of the Daśārņa, as far as we can make out from Indian sources, appears to have been settled in Central India and not along the coast. On the other hand, Dōsara may have been a dialectic form of Tosala. The Periplus states that Dōsarene yielded the ivory known as Dōsarenic. Hiuen Tsiang in his account of Kalinga says that it produced the great tawny wild elephant which was much prized by neighbouring provinces.
Avaranta (Skt. Aparanta) is the designation of the tract of the country lying along the western coast of the Peninsula, the capital of which was Sopară. According to the Ceylonese Chronicles, it was converted to Buddhism by Dhammarakkhita. Aśoka mentions it in his Fifth Rock-Edict in connection with the appointment of Dhamma-mahāmātas.
Vanga is the ancient name of Bengal. Vanavasi, also mentioned as Vanavāsaka in inscription H, is North Kanara, the name being still preserved in Banavasi, a village or small town in the Shimoga district of the Mysore State in latitude 14° 33', longitude 75° 5'. The Mahavamsa mentions Rakkhita as the apostle of Vanavāsa.
The three words following Vanavasi are uncertain. The first one can be hardly anything but Yavana, the aksharas ya and va being still legible. Next comes a name which I read tentatively as Damila, meaning the Tamil country. The third word seems to consist of three aksharax, the second and third of which are clearly lu and ra. It is tempting to restore the name as Palura, the town mentioned by Ptolemy and identified by Professor Sylvain Lévi with Dantapura," the Town of the Tooth" on the coast of Orissa.
Afilindapanha (ed. Trenckner), pp. 327 and 331.
Etudes Asiatiques, Vol. II, p. 24.
Sylvain Lévi, op. cit., pp. 23-24. Cf. Bijdragen, sixth series, Vol. VI, p. 7, no. 2.
Periplus, transl. by W. H. Schoff, p. 253, and N. L. Dey, Geogr. Dict., 2nd ed., 1927, p. 54, s. v. Dasara
Käldäsa in his Meghaduta locates the Dasarnas between the Vindhya and Vidisă.
Journal Asiatique, Vol, CCVI (1925), pp. 46ff. ; and Ind. Ant., Vol. LV (1928), pp. 94fi.