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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(APRIL, 1921
first handled the subject. It was also taken up by Zimmer in his All-Indische Leben. Hillebrandt, Pischel, Roth and other Vedic scholars also have touched on the subject, Brunhofer has attempted, in his Iran und Turan, to locate various Vedic rivers in regions outside India.
The Rigveda Sanhita generally mentions tribes and rivers only. Names of countries Qocur soldom. In the mention of the following rivers, there is, as Sir A. Stein18 has pointed out, a strict geographical order :-Ganga, Yamuna, (and the following tributaries of the Indus) Sarasvati, Sutudri (Satadru, Satlej), Parushyi (Ravi), Asikni (Akesines, Chenab), Marudvșiddh&19 Vitasta (Jhelum), Rrjikiya and Sushoma (Sohan). As we find in this list (Rigveda, X, 75, 5) a strict geographical order in the mention of the eastern tributaries of the Indus, we ought to take the same order to guide us in identifying the western tributaries mentioned in the next verse-Tristama, Susartu, Sveti, Gomati (Gomal), Krumu (Kurram), Kubhå (Kabul) and Mehantu. In the next two verses (X. 75, 7-8) are named some rivers. As Rigveda X, 64.8 mentions trisapta sasrd nadyah, thrice sevenjsister rivers, we ought to find the names of seven rivers in X, 75. 7-8. Sâyâna was ignorant of the geography of the North-Western Frontier, and therefore explained these words as adjectives. But these words are to be taken as proper names-Urņ&vati, Silamâvati, Rijiti, Eni, Chitra, Hiranmayi and Rusati-seven tributaries of the Indus to be located to the north-west. The last five (and Añjasi, Amsumati, Asmanmati, Kulisi and Virapatni) have not been mentioned in Macdonell and Keith's Vedic Index of Names and Subjects. But those five are to be taken as proper names, and geographical order will be a guide in the attempt to locate them.
The Indus and its tributaries are seldom mentioned in the Yajurveda, for the Aryang then lived in the territory of Kuru-Pañchala (Thaneswar and Rohilkhand), the old capital of which, Kâmpila, is mentioned. The Satapatha Brahmana (1,4, 1, 10-18) records the Aryan migration to Videha (Tirhut); while the Atharvaveda-Samhita shows that the Aryans were then acquainted with Auga and Magadha (which might have been known in Rigvedic age as Kikata, a country of the non-Aryans, whose leader was Pra-maganda whose name may have some connection with Magadha). The Aitareya Brahmana mentions the Aryan Vaidarbhas and the non-Aryan Andhras, Pundras, Sabaras, Pulindas and Mûtibas. The Vangas seem to be mentioned in the Aitareya Aranyaka (ü. 1, 1) as a non-Aryan tribe.
This gradual expansion of the Aryans can also be gathered from the Dharmasútras and Dharmafdstras. The Sätras (Vasistha, 1, 8; Baudhayana, 1. 1, 2, 9. etc.) state that the country of the Aryans-Åryâvarta lies to east of the region where the (Sarasvati) disppaears, to the west of Black forest (Kalakavana 20), to the north of Pâripatra and to the south of the Himalayas. It is strange to note that this definition of Aryavarta excludes the greater portion of the land of the Rigvedio Aryans. [A famous episode (Karşa-Salya-saṁ râda) in the Kamnaparvan of the Mah. bharata also clearly states the impurity of the Punjab tribes during the Epic age.]
19 Bhandarkar Commemoration Volume.
10 Stein has identified it with the Maruwardwan which flows from north to south through the Mara valley of the Kashmir Jammu state and joins the Chenab at Kistawar.
20 I propose to identify KAlakavana, the eastern boundary of Aryavarta of the Stras, with Prayag the matern boundary of Manu'a Madhyadeśa, which is identical with the Aryavarta of the Sutra As the other three boundaries are the same (Paripâtra being a portion of the Vindhyas), the eastern limite also ought to be identical. In the later ago there flourished a city (Prayaga) and a country there, where the earlier literature locates a forest. Ayodhyakanda (LIV and LV) of the Ramayaya statoe that Prayaga was then a clearing in a forest.
