Madhuvidya

Author(s): S D Laddu, T N Dharmadhikari, Madhvi Kolhatkar, Pratibha Pingle
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 585

The Rgvedic singers seem to be more or less settled down in the land of the river Sindhu and that of the seven rivers, that is the north-western part and Punjab of the undivided India. They knew the river Gangā, but the river had not then assumed the importance which it did in later Sanskrit literature. They had yet no knowledge of the lotus, the nyagrodha, the tiger and rice, which are all foreign to the north-west of India.
The authors of the Atharvaveda hymns show further advance towards east and the south. The tiger now appears as the most feared beast of prey and his skin becomes the sign of king's power.
When we come to the period of the Brāhmanas we notice that the land known as Brahmăvarta or the land of Kurus (Kuruksetra) lying between the rivers Sarasvati and Drşadvati and of the Pāñcālas, the land between the Ganga and the Yamunā (the Doab) assumes importance.
The story of Videgha Māthava as narrated in the Sat. Br. clearly points to the expansion of the Vedic Indians to the east. The fire which came out from the mouth of Videgha Măthava started from the river Sarasvati in the west towards the river Sadāniră (modern Gandak?) in the east. The Brāhmaṇas had never crossed the river Sadăniră before this incident. But now they settled down' even to the east of the river Sadāniră.
Similarly the legends of the sage Agastya who first burnt the Räkşasas in the north and then destroyed those who had taken shelter in the southern direction, and his crossing the Vindhya mountain and settling down in the south point to the expansion of the Vedic Indians to the South.
This gradual expansion of the Vedic people taking them to the newer and newer lands and their getting to know new animals and grains show clearly that they came to India from outside. If the Vedic Indians were the indigenous people there is no reason why they should not mention anything peculiar to the central, eastern and southern parts of India in the hymns of the Rgveda.
REFERENCES 1. Ādarśa is probably a mistake for adarśa=adarśana or vinaśana which is identified
with Kuruksetra. Identified with Allahabad in D.C. Sircar's Studies in the Geography of Ancient India, pp. 40, 172, 173, 241 but with Rajmahal Hills in Bihar in N.L. Dey's
Geographical Dictionery. 3. "The Proto-Indoryans",JRAS. 1973, 123-140. 4. The information from her upto p. 44 of this article is based on Paul ThiMe's Die Heimat der indogermanischen Gemeinsprasche, Wiesbaden, 1954. 5. BSOS 8 (1936), p. 411 ff. 6. 1.4.1.10 7. Ibid. 1.4.1.14-15 8. Mbh. 13.140.7-13
9. Ibid. 3.102
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