Essay name: Purana Bulletin
Author:
Affiliation: University of Kerala / Faculty of Oriental Studies
The "Purana Bulletin" is an academic journal published in India. The journal focuses on the study of Puranas, which are a genre of ancient Indian literature encompassing mythological stories, traditions, and philosophical teachings. They represent Hindu scriptures in Sanskrit and cover a wide range of subjects.
Purana, Volume 9, Part 1 (1967)
144 (of 228)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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136
啶啶班ぞ啶｀ぎ啷� - [pur膩峁嘺m - ] 笔鲍搁膧狈础
[Vol. IX., No. 1
251; vii, 134), was made up of different countries, desas, or
provinces called janapadas or vishayas, held together under a raj膩.
Thus the Gangaridai could very appositely be a collection or
confederacy of provinces situated in the Ganges-region, ruled
over by King Xandrames in 326 B. C. effectively in some places,
loosely in others. By their very nature, they could not be
confined to the Ganges-delta. And, if they had at all a central
seat of power, though not of origin since they came from no single
province, it must have been where, far from that delta, Xandrames
was waiting for Alexander, all the military resources of his
manifold rattha mobilised to make the huge forces of men and
chariots and animals the Classical historians have enumerated.
And, when the Gangaridai rather than the Prasii are
repeatedly said or suggested to be Alexander's enemy under
Xandrames, this king of the Indian interior must be placed
principally west of Magadha, at least west of Magadha's capital
P膩ta liputra. There can be no objection to his having had like
Chandr膩m艣a, Vidi艣膩 as his seat of government.
The Precise Geographical Situation
However, to make Chandr膩msa's geographical situation
precisely like that of Xandrames we have to show that, like
Xandrames, he may have ruled over fairly extensive territory from
a governmental seat at Vidi艣膩.
The Pur膩峁嘺s, telling us of the time after the Vindhyakas
have passed away, make the N膩gas flourish at other centres too,
Kantipuri, Mathur膩, Padmavati.鹿 The prevalence of N膩ga
rule over considerable portions of Northern India in both the
pre-Gupta and the Gupta periods is also attested by epigraphic and
numismatic finds. It seems the N膩gas who are specified in the
Pur膩nas as rulers of one or another centre were really master
over more than one centre and that the object of mentioning
this or that centre was to denote the home or the principal
city of each N膩ga. Thus, "some coins bearing the name
of Mah膩r膩ja Ganendra or Ga峁嘺pa have been discovered
1. Ibid.,
2. The Age of Imperial Unity, p. 169,
