________________
MAY, 1921)
TRANS-HIMALAYAN REMINISCENCES IN PALI LITERATURE
161
[ On the shores of the North Sea and to the south of it, There live the Kurus in their holy land, the home of the perfect ones. ]
It is clear, therefore, that the accounts preserved in the Vayu and the BrahmândaPuranas take us back to a period when Jambudvipa included alınost the whole of the inhabi. ted portion of Central Asia froin the south of the Himalaya to the shores of the North Sea.
There is, however, evidence in the Puranas that the Kurus had moved from their old home. The following verses occur in the Padma-purana :
"उत्तरेणाव घृजस्थ समुद्रान्त विजोत्तमाः। वर्षनैरावतं नाम तस्माच्छुजवतः परम् ॥ T a staran HATT:
TAT A fra Fars :" !! ( To the north of the Sțingavân mountain and where the sea ends, oh best of the
twice born, Is the country named Airavata (country of the Mammoths) next to Sringavân. The sun does not go there and men never become old, And also the moon, with the stars which are luminous, is, as it were, covered. ]
The northernmost country is no longer the country of the Kurus, but is known as the Mammoth country, a land where the sun and the moon cannot reach. Both the acepunt, in the Brahmânda-pura ņa and the Padma-purâna place the northernmost country close to the shores of the North Sea, and possibly within the arctic circle, far away from the limits of the sun's and moon's movements.
The Padma-purâņa locates the Uttara-Kurus south of the Nila range and north of the Meru and in the close vicinity of the latter :
इक्षिणेन तु नीलस्य मेरो:
पार्थे तथोत्तरे। उत्तरा : कुरवो विमा पुण्या
fermercar: 1) [South of the Nila and by the side of the Meru and to the north of it, Are the Uttara-Kurus, inhabited by the wise and the saintly.)
The land of the Kurus, it will be noted, is designated in the Padma-purâna as UttaraKuru, which undoubtedly points to the fact that a branch of this race had already separated from the main stock and migrated southwards. In the Mahâbhârata the city of the UttaraKurus is placed in Harivarsha which, according to Pauranic geography, lay to the south of Nishadha and far to the south of the Meru. 11
In the Aitareya Brahmaņa 12 the Uttara-Kurus are a trans-Himalayan people in the north, and Kuru-Pañchâlas, on this side of the Himalayas and forming the middle country. I take this to mean that the former lay on the other side of the Himalayas and directly north of the Kuru-Pañchala country. And as we have eslewhere a mention of Uttara-Panchala 13 also, we may take it as certain that the allied Kurus were a branch of the Uttara-Kurus and had emigrated to India along the valleys of some of the Himalayan rivers.
(b) अनोतस महासर-The Pali suttas are full of references to अनोतल महासर. They speak of the seven great inland seas from which the Mahanadis rise, viz.,14 wa f 997. CUR, FT, OP.
A rt. The Mahanadís all issue out of the Himalayas
19 H
a na, Vol. IV. p. 101 (P. T. s.).
11 See supra. 19 See mpra. 14 , (Fausboll), Vol. III, p. 461.
