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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(JUNE, 1921
(2) The Puân9s preserve in them the ceminiscences of
(a) & very ancient tradition of the old Aryan homeland which was situated oither within the Arctic circle or very near to it;
(6) a later tradition according to which Jambudvipa extended from India in the south to Kuru or Uttarakuru which lay to the south of the North Sea;
(c) the most recent of these traditions which practically identifies Jambudvipa with India, and according to which India is considered as one of the four great dvipas or lands, viz. Bhadrâsva (Tarim valley), Ketumala (basin of the Oxus), Bharata or Jambudvipa (India), through which the Ganges flows, and Uttarakuru a land to the north of Meru. The Meru region is compared to the central part of a lotus ; Bhadrâsva, Bharata, Ketumala and Uttarakuru to its petals.
This description would place the Meru mount in the centre of the Pamir region from which the great Asiatic ranges start.52 "The axis, or backbone of Pamir formation is,' we are told, the great meridional mountain chain of Sarikol—the ancient Taurus of tradition and history--on which stands the highest peak north of the Himalaya, the Muztagh Ata (25,000 ft). This chain divides off the high-level sources of the Oxus on the west from the streams which sweep downwards into the Turkestan depression of Kashgar on the east. Can this peak be Meru ? This view is supported by the following considerations -
(i) Bhadrâsva with its river Sita can be definitely identified with the Tarim Valley and he river which drains it.
(ii) Ketumâla with its river Chakshu or Aksu is the same as the country through which the Oxus flows.
(ii) Bhâratavarsha or Jambudvipa is India which receives the flow of the Alakmanda or Alakananda, which, after its junction with the Bhagirathi, forms the Ganges. The reason why, of all the rivers, the Ganges is mentioned as the river of India, is that during the later Vedic and the Buddhistic ages, the centre of Aryan civilisation in India had shifted far to the east of the Punjab in the valley of the Ganges.
(iv) The Gulchas, who are supposed to have descended from a pure Aryan stock, live not very far from this region and they have marked race-affinities with the people of Khotan, and probably, the Kashmiris.
(v) The Pamir valleys have been scooped out by glacial movements which took place during the Ice-ages, and the Ice-fields not very far from this region are the most stupendous in the world. In the Vendidad there are passages preserving the memory of severe winters when the ice sheet descended down to the lowest valleys and which must have ultimately determined the race-dispersal from this central region.
(3) The deflection of the Aryan stream of emigration to the cast and south-east from the central homeland in the Pamirs must have been determined by the hostilities of the Indian and Iranian branches of the race, the former being worsted in the struggle. There is clear evidence of this in the Brahmana and Puranic literature.
(4) The lines of emigration were various and not merely from the N. W. of India, as is generally believed. Even in the Vedas, as we have seen above, there is a reference to a northerly course of the Indus, and the fact that the Kashmiris are Indo-Aryans and have race affinity with the Galchas and Khotanese is additional evidence of movements direct into Kashmir from the N. and N. E. of the country. The intimate knowledge which people seem to have possessed of Alaka nandâ, Bhagirathi and Anotatta Daha or Mansarwar, and of which the memory has been kept fresh and keen by the piety of Hindu pilgrims, is a proof of emigrations along the routes which follow the courses of the head waters of the Ganges. The story of Bhagiratha leading this river into India is but a reminiscence of his having been himself led into India by the Bhagirathi.
62 Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, xx, 666.
