India As Described In Early Texts Of Buddhism and Jainism

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

Page 76

68 INDIA. AS DESCRIBED IN EARLY TDXTS
as we saw, in some of the Pali canonical lists of important countries. These three are the countries that are referred in Asoka's R.E. V to Aparānta or western end of Jambudvipa, Gandhāra may be taken to have comprised the whole of the districts of Peshawat (Puruşapura) and Rawalpindi in the northern Punjab.. Its capital Takkasilā (modorn Taxila) was both a centre of trade and an ancient seat of learning. According to the Jatakas, its distanco from Benares was 2,000 leagues. Kasmira is not other than the modern State of Kashmore and Jammu which lies to the east of Peshawar and Rawalpindi. The location of Yona and Kamboja is not finally settled. Evidently they must have been localities near about KasmiraGandhāra. Other places mentioned in early Pali texts and to be included in Uttaräpatha are the countries of Vajirā,1 Suddaka, Khuddaka, Madda, Alasanda, Pallava, Bāhika and Babbara. Of these, the city of Vajiră is obviously no other than what finds mention in the Bodhisattvävadāna-Kalpalatā (p. 4) as Vajrāvati and is placed in Uttarāpatha. Thor Mahābhārata (ix. 37.1) definitely locates the land of the Suddakas (Śūdrakas) in western Rajputana where the Sarasvati disappears (yatra naştā Sarasvati). But the Greek historians place the 1 Buddhapampaa, xxviu, 8; Diparamsa, p. 27
Apaddna, ii, p. 359.