Book Title: Old Bramhi Inscriptions In Udaygiri And Khandagiri
Author(s): Benimadhab Barua
Publisher: University of Calcutta

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Page 247
________________ Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra www.kobatirth.org Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir NOTES 219 the name Dakşiņāpatha was gradually lost sight of with the result that in later times the location of Daksiņāpatha came to be shifted to the south of the Vindhya range,? to finally cover the whole of the modern South India lying between the Vindhya range and the Cape Comorin, the Deccan proper still being the region between the Godāvari and the Krşıā. It may be easily inferred from the Nasik cave inscription of Queen Gautami, from the list of countries included in the dominions of Gautamiputra Sri-Sātakarņi, that, as late as the first two centuries of the Christian era, the kingdom of Avanti was located in Dakşiņāpatha. A similar historical process can be conceived with reference to Utarā padha or Uttarāpatha. For Uttarāpatha, too, may be supposed to have been originally a great trade-route, the Northern High Road, whic extended from Sāvatthi to Takkasilā in Gandhāra, and have lent, precisely like the Southern High Road, its name to the region through which ity passed, the region, broadly speaking, covering the north-western part of the United Provinces, the whole of the Punjab Province and the NorthWestern Frontier Provinces. That this region was known up to a late period as Uttarāpatha is evident from these three literary references : (1) Uttara-Madhura-Uttarāpalhe," the Northern Mathurā, the Mathurâ proper on the Yamunā, in Uttarāpatha," occurring in Dharmapāla's ParamatthaDipaní, a commentary on the Petavatthu ; (2) Pșthudakāt paratah Uttarā. pathaḥ, “ Uttarāpatha lies (towards the west) beyond Pșthudaka (near Thaneswar)," occurring in the Kāvya-Mimāmsā ;? and (3) the following verse occurring in the Mahābhārata, XII, 207, 43 : Uttarāpatha-janmanah kārtayisyāmi tān api Yauna.Kamboja-Gandhārah Kirāta Barbaraih saha || 8 Buddhaghosa in his commentary on the Kathāvatthu, attributes certain views in the Kathāvatthu to two Buddhist schools called Hemavatika and Uttarāpathaka. Hemavatika and Uttarā pathaka were the local or 1. Kāvya-Mimāmsā, p. 93. M&hişmatyaḥ parataḥ Dakşiņāpathaḥ, “ Dakşiņāpatha is the tract of land which lay beyond Māhişmati in the south." Cf. Bhāratiya Natya-Såstra, XIV, 39-41. 2. Kavya-Mimāınsă, p. 93, quoted in Canningham's Ancient Geography of India (8. N. Majumdar's edition), p. 965. 3. Quoted in H. C. Raychaudhuri's Political History of Anoient India, 2nd editio p. 83. For Private And Personal Use Only

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