India As Described In Early Texts Of Buddhism and Jainism

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

Page 32

24 INDIA AS DESCRIBED IN EARLY TEXTS
which was either the confluence of the Nerañjarā and the Mahanadi or the river Soņa.1 To the east beyond Prayaga the united flow of the Ganga and Yamuna bore the name of Gangă. It is this Ganga which formed a boundary between kingdoms of Kasi and Magadha. Bārānasī, the capital of Kāśī, stood on its left bank. Further down it formed a boundary between Videha and Vesali on the north and Magadha, Anga and Kajangala on the south, on the right bank of which stood and still stand Pataliputta, the second or last capital of Magadha and Campa, the capital of Anga. In the early Pali texts we have mention of three other rivers in Madhyadesa that were of minor importance: Anoma, Rohiņi and Kakutthā. The first was a river thirty leagues to the east of Kapilavatthu which obviously formed boundary between the territory of the Sakyas and that of the Mallas. According to the Lalitavistara, however, the distance of the river from the Sakya capital was six leagues only.* The second, Rohini, was a small river which divided the Sakyan and Koliyan territories." Cunningham identifies it with the modern Rowai
a
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1 Manorathapuraṇī (Sinhalese ed.), i, p. 761f.
2 Majjhima, I, Vatthupamasutta.
3 Jātaka, i,p. 64f.; Paramatthajotika, II, p. 382; Malalasekera p. cit., i, p. 102.
4 Lalitavistara, ed. Lefmann.
5 Jataka, v, p. 412; Paramatthajotika, II, p. 358.