Indian Antiquary Vol 60

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 27

JANUARY, 1931)
WHERE WAS TARKKARI ?
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He has also shown from the context that Tarkkâri lay within the limits of Sravasti and that BAlagrAma, described as being prasita (derived) from this Tarkkäri of Srävasti, was also situated in the land of Varendri in Pundra (northern Bengal) : “ The poet, perhaps, means to say that this newly-established village, as the name Balagrâma also suggests, was colonized by people coming from Tarkkâri of Śrävasti, which seems to have been a neighbouring place, The locality intervening between these two places, viz., Sråvasti-Tarkkâri and VarendriBAlagrama, is named Sakati, which sounds like the name of a river. From the meaning appropriately to be assigned to verse 4, one feels inclined to presume the existence of a town of the name of Srâvasti in North Bengal (Gauda).” In this way he has come to the conclusion, disagreeing with Sir A. Cunningham, that the Sråvasti mentioned in verse 2 of the Silimpur inscription was situated in Pundra, and must be identified with the city of the same name mentioned in the Malsya and Kurma Purdnas.
Mr. N. G. Majumdar found certain grave difficulties in accepting Mr. Basak's views. (Ind. Ant., vol. XLVIII, pp. 208-211.) At the outset he says that the very fact that there is recorded a Brahman emigration from Srävasti, which he found in other inscriptions, too, would seem to indicate that it is identical with the Srivasti of the Madhyadeśa. This shows that Mr. Majumdar approached the subject with a pre-possessed mind that the Madhyadesa Brahmanas monopolized the emigration to other provinces.
We need not tell an antiquarian scholar like Mr. Majumdar that Indian epigraphy is not wanting in evidence to show that Brahmaņas from Pundravardhana also migrated to other provinoes. What do the traditions of the Gauda Brahmanas and the Gauda Tagas say? Do they not say that these Brahmanas went from Gauda in Bengal? (Suppt. to the Glossary of Indian Terms by Sir H. M, Elliot, pp. 417-18, 420.) He argues ; "In the first place, if the two villages had been situated side by side (tbe distance between them being only a river), and if it be true that some Brahman families, who had formerly been living on one bank of the stream, now came to settle on the other, it would have been quite out of place to describe their former home in the terms in which Tarkkari has been described. Were the two places topographically so closely connected, no sensible writer would have ever thought of specifying their separate topographical details, viz., that one of them—Tarkkâri is Sravasti-prativad. dha, i.e., in Srdvasti, and the other-Balagrama is in Pundra and Varendri. Secondly, the expression Sakațivyavadhanavan' is an adjective of Balagrama. Therefore, it cannot have anything to do with Tarkkari, which word is at a long distance; and the expression cannot be taken to mean that Sakați' was the vyavadhana between Balagrama and Tarkkari. The very nature of the compound shows that the vyaradhana is in reference to Balagráma alone. I, therefore, suggest that the natural meaning would be, 'the village of Balagrima, which had for its boundary, or was bounded by, the river Sakati.'"
Here also Mr. Majumdar has shown his preconoeption that Sravasti was in Madhyadeća. Otherwise he would not have found separate topographical details for Tarkkari and Balagráma in the expression quoted above. The writer's intention was evidently not so much to describe the topography as to lay stress on the fact that Balagrama was known throughout the oountry of Pundra as the ornament of Varendri. There is nothing in the expression to mean that Tarkkäri and so Srävasti were not in Pundra. For example, if one writes "Chowringhee in Calcutta is the finest quarter of the city. It is facing the maidan and is inhabited by the well-to-do Europeans. Alipur, well-known in Bengal as the headquarters of the district of the 24 Parganas, is derived or an offshoot from that, being separated by Bhowani. par, surely Mr. Majumdar will not charge the writer with giving two separate topographical details for two closely connected places, such as Chowringbee and Alipur, nor will be charge the writer with want of sense. Further, does the description convey, the meaning that Caloutta is outside Bengal ?
Slnglt plato of the Ratakafa Govinda, IV (933 AD:), (Ind. An., XII, p. 261).