Setubandha

Author(s): Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

Page 55

46
INTRODUCTION
crossed the Vindhya range before passing on to the Sahya, which is the name given to the northern portion of the Western Ghats from the Tāpti to the Nilgiris.'
Of the remaining hills Pravarasena mentions only the Malaya in connection with the route followed by Rāma's army. It is the famous range of hills in Kerala, being the southern portion of the Western Ghats terminating near Cape Comorin. South of the Palghat gap it consists of a series of hill ranges with a variety of names : the Ānaimalai, the Elāmalai known as the Cardamom hills,? Pīrmed and the Agastyamalai peak in the south.3 Malai is the Dravidian word for hill, and Malaya is apparently the collective name of all these hill ranges. The
1 Cf. Pargiter, The Mārkandeya Purāna, p. 285. It appears from certain references in
the Kişkindhakanda that the name Vindhya was also applied to the hills beyond the southern end of the Eastern Ghats. The Vanaras who went South to search for Sitā are described as halting after their vain efforts on the slope of the Vindhya (4.52.16). Sampāti meets them there, and tells them how he fell on the peak of that mountain after his wings had been scorched by the sun, and concluded that it was the Vindhya on the coast of the Southern sea after observing the surroundings (4.59.4 ff.). He reports that Lankā was at a distance of full hundred yojanas from there (4.57.20). It can also be gathered from his words that the Mahendra hill, which was very close to the sea (see below), was not far from the Vindhya, as he once had occasion to rebuke his son Suparšva for tarrying on that hill where he had gone in quest of food for his father (4.58.10 ff.). After Sampāti's departure, the Vānaras, encouraged by his words, proceed in a southerly direction (4.62.15) and reach the seashore. The references to the Vindhya in the Kiskindhākānda would lead one to suppose that it was located near the Southern ocean, though not as close to the sea as the Mahendra bill. The southern Vindhya of the Rāmāyana would thus seem to comprise the southern portion of the Eastern Ghats and the hilly country at the foot of the Gbats as far as the Tirunelveli hills in the neighbourhood of the sea. In Setu 1.54 the sea skirting the (south-east) coast is compared to a bow, and the Vindhya range fancied as the string attached to both ends of the bow, the rivers being the arrows joined to the bowstring. The commentators do not explain whether the ref. erence is to the northern or the southern Vindhya. The footnote to the Translation
explaining the verse requires emendation. 2 Cf. elālatālingitacandanāsu malayasthalişu Raghu 6 61. The Elāmalai has a number
of cardamom plantations. The Gazetteer of India, Vol. 1, p. 46. 1965. 3 Thurston, The Madras Presidency, p. 18. Cambridge, 1913.