Indian Antiquary Vol 50

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 201

JUNE, 1921) TRANS-HIMALAYAN REMINISCENCES IN PALI LITERATURE
191
It is a curious fact that both the Taittiriya Brahmana." and the Vendidad so speak of an old home-land where neither the sun nor the moon shone, which was illuminated by a spontaneous light, and where days and nights were of six months' duration. The Purânag51 also describe an early habitation of the Aryans which was to the south of the North Sea, where neither the sun nor the moon went on their daily rounds and the sky was illuminated by spontaneons light-streamers.
The Pauranic evidence is copious and circumstantial, but seems to be composed of more than one tradition marking, perhaps, the different stages of the history of Aryan emigration. According to one and the most widely accepted tradition, Jambudvipa extended from India or Haimavatavarsha to the shores of the North Sea. embracing in its sweep six great mountain ranges and nine countries bounded by them. Another tradition records the existence of four Mahadvipas or great lands, viz., Bhadrâýva. Bharata (also called Jambudvipa), Ketumala and Uttarakuru. Bhadrâśva can be safely identified with the basin of the Târim (Sita) river ; Ketumala, with the valley of the Oxus (Chakshu): Bharata, with India, through which the river Alaknanda or Ganges flows; and Uttarakuru, with a northern land watered by a river which flowed into the North Sea.
There are various traditions also about the locations of the different varsha or countries. Thus the land of the Kurus is, according to one tradition, the northernmost rarsha; according to another, it is to the north of the central valley, Ilavrita; according to another, it is identified with a valley lying to the south of Ilå všita; and according to another it is to be placed north of the Himavanta. As these countries were named after the people who lived in them, they would change their names as the inhabitants migrated southwards to other lands, booking greener pastures and more congenial climes. The Mahabharata, as I have said above, distinctly mentions the occupation of Harivarsha by the Uttarakurus.
The valley of Ilavrita, as described in the Purâņas, was situated round the base of Meru and was the most central of all the varshas or lands, which, according to an older tradition, extended from the south of the Himalaya to the shores of the North Son; whilo another tradition, which is undoubtedly a more recent one, allocates it north of the Kailass and the Himalaya and states that it forms the centre of the four dvipas enumerated above, viz.. Uttarakuru, Ketumala, Bharata and Bhadrâéve. The Rigveda mentions & region known as Tâspada, but the far-famed Meru is unknown to the Rishis whose utterances are preserved in that ancient record. This makes it very doubtful if the Ilâvpita of the later Puranic tradition can be the same as the laspada of the Rigveda. I am inclined to think that the name Ilavrita or Háspada migrated southwards in the same way as the name Kuru did, and that the Vedic or earlier Puranic Da-land had a more northern situation, having been the centre of the Jambud vipa of the older tradition, while the Nåvrita of the later account, which was the centre of the four dofpas or great countries, can be definitely identified with the Pamir region, from which the Indo-Aryans descended to the plains of Haimavata-varsha or India, among the valleys of the various rivers which connect the plains of northern India with the Trans-Himalayan countries, viz., the valleys of the Indus, the Swat, the Kabul, the Sutlej, the Saraju and the Ganges (Alakanandå).
We have also to take into account the most ancient of the Puranic traditions which seems to tocate Håvrita somowhere near the Arctic circle or within it, and which perhaps is an echo of what we find in the Vendidad and the Rigveda.
The line of studies followed in this paper suggests the following comelusions :
(1) Pali literatuu is full of definite references to the Himalaya and the Trans-Himalaya and preserves a more or less dim and legendary memory of Uttarakuru and of the Sumeru, Meru or Mah meru mountain, the home of the Tavatios Deities. 19 Taikirtya Brahmanas, III, 9. 28,1.
so Vendidad, Fargard II, para, 40. 61 Padmapurdy, Adihada