India As Described In Early Texts Of Buddhism and Jainism

Author(s): Bimla Charn Law
Publisher: Bimlacharan Law

Page 12

4 INDIA AS DESCRIBED IN EARLY TEXTS the north of Bhāratavarşa and the Himalaya mountain, divides the Himalayan range into two, the Mahāhimavanta or Greater Himalayan and the Cullahimavanta or Lesser Himalayan. The former extends eastwards up to the eastern Bea, i.e., the Bay of Bengal, and the latter westwards and then southwards up to the sea , below the Varşadhara mountain, i.e., the Arabian sea.1
The topographical outline of India to tho south of the Himalayas is sought to be pictured in the Pali Mahāgovinda-suttanta in the shape of a bullock-cart with its face towards the south. Accordingly it is describod as extended on the north. The symbol suggested in the Mārkandeya Purāņa for visualisation of tho surface of India is one of the convex shape of the upper shell of a tortoise (kūrmaprstha). It is obviously a very correct picture of the thing, inasmuch as all the rivers of India either flow eastwards into the Bay of Bengal or flow westwards into the Arabian Sea. Further, according to the Jambudiva-pannatti, the Vaitādhya (Vindhya ?) mountain range divides
1 Jambudīva-pannatts, i, 9: Bharahe nämam vēse... Cullahimavamtassavāsaharapavveyagga dâhinonam dâhiņalavapasamuddassa uttarenam, puratthitalavarasamuddassa pacoatthimenarp ... The same extension of the range is implied in the Molinda, p. 114.
2 Dağha, II, p. 238: uttarena āyatam, dakkhinena sakata-mukhamp. & Märkandeya Purāna, Chaps. 67 and 58.