Vil. ‘NOTE ON THE MIDDLE COUNTRY OF ANCIENT INDIA. Br T. W. BHYS DAVIDS, F.B.A. NUMEROUS examples might be quoted of philosophical, or political, or religious parties who have claimed for themselves a central, or a moderate, position, far removed from the ignorances and foolishnesses of the extremists on either side. There are even cases in which the critical historian may observe that, on a fair survey of the points in dispute at the time and place in question, the claim is fairly justified. So the Buddha claimed for his view of life that it was the Middle Way between worldliness, or indifference, on the one side, and asceticism on the other. So Aristotle described the ideal virtue as the Golden Mean. A somewhat similar case is that of people, dwelling in places or countries remote one from the other, who have nevertheless claimed for their own town or country a central position. Most Westerns used to suppose our earth to be the very centre of all the stars; and how pleasantly such @ notion may appeal to self-complacency is shown by recent attempts to reconcile it with improved astronomy. We all know that a certain town on the east coast of North America is the hub of the universe. So is Lhassa in Tibet. And the Chinese are often reported habitually to speak of China as ‘the Middle Country.’ It is difficult to say whether this last is a designation merely geographical, or whether it also connotes that the people outside are outsiders, barbarians. And I do not know if any Chinese scholar has adequately discussed the history and full bearing of the term. But it is interesting to notice that certain writers in India made use of a similar expression; and it may be of use to collect the evidence as to the degree in which they did so, and as to the intent with which they used it.84 THE MIDDLE COUNTRY OF ANCIENT INDIA. The oldest passage in which it occurs is in the fifth Khandaka, the Cammakkhandaka, of the Vinaya (1. 197), translated in “Vinaya Texts” (ii, 38). It is in a very ancient explanation of a rule of the Buddhist Order which allows the reception of a new member into the Order to take place, in border countries, before a chapter of only four members under the presidency of a fifth (who must be one who knows the Rules by heart). In the middle country the chapter had to consist of ten members.! The explanation of the rule laying down this exceptional procedure is as follows :— Tatr° ime paccantima janapada : Puratthimaya disaya Kajangalay nama nigamay, tassa parena Mahasala, tato para paccantima janapada, orato majjhe. Puratthimadakkhinfya disiya Salalavati niima nadi, tato para paccantima janapada, orato majjhe. Dakkhinaya disiya Setakannikam nama nigamo, tato para paccantima janapada, orato majjhe. Pacchimaya diséya Thiinay nama brahmanagamo, tato para paccantima janapada, orato majjhe. Uttaraya disaya Usiraddhajo nama pabbato, tato para paccantima janapada, orato majjhe. That is to say : “In this (Rule) the following are the border countries :— “To the east is the town called Kajangala, beyond that is Mahisila. Beyond that are border countries; on this side of it is in the middle (country). “To the south-east is the river Salalavati (v.1. Sallavati). Beyond that are border countries; on this side of it is in the middle (country). “To the south is the town Setakannika. Beyond that are border countries; on this side of it is in the middle (country). “To the west is the brahmin village called Thiina. Beyond that are border countries; on this side of it is in the middle (country). 1 See Vin., 1, 319 = Mahavagya, ix, 4. 1.THE MIDDLE COUNTRY OF ANCIENT INDIA. 85 “To the north is the mountain called Usiraddhaje. Beyond that are border countries; on this side of it is in the middle (country).” It may be noted in passing that it is most unlikely that the Middle Country thus deliminated was supposed to be square. We should, in that case, have heard only of the usual north, south, east, and west. What we have to imagine is a district of irregular shape, with five corners not necessarily equidistant. The document in which this statement occurs was con- sidered by Professor Oldenberg, in the introduction to his edition of the text (dated May, 1879), as being about 400 B.c., and probably a little earlier. The only alternative theory is that the whole of the Pali literature, including this work, are simply forgeries concocted in Ceylon. But no attempt has been made to show how this latter theory can be made to square with the facts; it is put forward by way of inuendo rather than as a serious and considered opinion ; and would not now, I think, meet anywhere with approval. From that time (about 400 3.c.) onward, this explanation has formed part of the tradition handed down in the Buddhist schools. And when the commentaries came in the course of the fifth century A.D. to be recorded, some in Ceylon and some in India, in Pali, it was incorporated in them. Thus we find it given, in identical words, and as a description of the Majjhima Desa, in the Paramattha Jotika, the commentary on the Khuddaka Patha, a work not yet edited, but ascribed in the Gandha Vamsa (p. 59) to Buddhaghosa.! We find it in the Sumangala Vilasini, the commentary on the Digha, undoubtedly by Buddhaghosa? ; and in the Jataka commentary, also ascribed, but in my opinion erroneously,’ to Buddhaghosa. The passage is also given, but this time in paraphrase, in the heavy Sanskritised 1 The quotation is given by Childers in his notes to the edition of the Khuddaka Patha (J.R.A.S., October, 1869, p. 20 of the author’s reprint). 2 Vol. i, p. 173, of Rhys Davide’ and Carpenter’s edition for the Pali Text 2 S00 the references given in “‘ Buddhist India,” p. 201; and Jataka, 1. 49,-86 .THE MIDDLE COUNTRY OF ANCIENT INDIA. Pali peculiar to that author, by Upatissa in his Mahabodhi- vamea,! which the editor dates about the same period as Buddhaghosa. In both the Jataka commentary and the Sumangala the following sentence, not found in the Vinaya, is added :— “That (middle country) is in length 300 yojanas, in breadth 250 yojanas, and in circumference 900 yojanas.” We are elsewhere told in the Jataka (1. 80) of two merchants travelling on the road from Ukkala to the Majjhima Desa; of hermits fearing to descend from the Himilayas to go into Majjhima Desa because the people: there are too learned (3. 115, 116); of a mountain Arajijara- giri in the Majjhima Desa (3. 463; 5. 184), and of Videha being situate within it (3. 364). A similar passage further occurs, in the same connection as in the Vinaya, in a collection of legends preserved in Buddhist Sanskrit, called the Divyavadina, put together at some unknown date after the Christian era. It runs as follows :— Parvenopali Pundavardhanay nama nagaran, tasya pirvena Pundakakeo nama parvatah, tatah parena pratyantah. Daksinena Saravati? nama nagari, tasyah parena Saravati nama nadi, so ’ntah, tatah parena pratyantah. Paégcimena Sthiinopasthiinakau brahmanagramakau, so ntah, tatah parena paryantah. Uttarena Usiragirih, so ’ntah, tatah parena pratyantah. That is to say : “To the east, Upali, is the town called Pundavardhana, and to the east of that the mountain called Pundakaksha, beyond that is beyond the border. “To the south is the town called Suravati, and to the east of that the river called Saravati. That is the boundary. Beyond that is beyond the boundary. 1 Strong’s edition (P.T.S.), p. 12. * Sarvavati, and Savaravati, in other MSS.THE MIDDLE COUNTRY OF ANCIENT INDIA. 87 “To the west are the brahmin villages Sthina and Upasthinaka. That is the boundary. Beyond that is beyond the boundary. “To the north is Mount Usira. That is the boundary. Beyond that is beyond the boundary.” This is evidently an echo of the old Vinaya passage. But the writer cannot have had the Pali before him. For the east and south-east have been confused, the south point (as given in the Pali) is omitted, and both the names and the phraseology differ slightly throughout. I will first add here what is known of the places mentioned in these passages, and then suggest the conclusions which, I venture to think, may fairly be drawn. 1. Kajangala. This town is not mentioned elsewhere in the Pali texts so far as edited. But a town Kajangala, which, in spite of the difference of gender, may be the same, is mentioned several times. Two of these references are in our oldest documents (Majjhima, 3. 298, and Anguttara, 5. 54). Had we before us the commentaries on these two passages, and on the Vinaya passage, we could probably decide the point. But they are unfortunately still buried in MS. At Jataka IV, 310, we are told that Kajangala was, even in the Buddha’s time, an ancient place, and that it was famous for its dabba-grass. And the Majjhima passage shows that it was the seat of the Pardsiriya school of brahmins.' Now Yuan Chwang happens to mention twice, in his fifth and tenth chapters, a place whose name he transliterates with five Chinese syllables, the first two of which certainly represent Kaja and the last two gala. The intermediate syllable is doubtful, as the readings differ. Vivien de St. Martin (who, of course, knew nothing of the passages just quoted) restored the name as Kajangala, and he is probably right. Anyhow, Thomas Watters, the best authority we have on such a point, agrees with him. Yuan Chwang locates this place at about 400 li, that is, about 65-70 miles, east of Champa, whose capital is known to have been close ' On this interesting school see ‘‘ Buddhist India,” p. 144.88 THE MIDDLE COUNTRY OF ANCIENT INDIA. to where the modern Bhagalpur now stands. This would fix that Kajangala at about 98° E. by 25° N. Now it is true that only excavations on the spot, and the evidence of an inscription, can determine the exact locality, or settle the question of identity. But the probability is greatly in favour of this Kajangala, whose position in the seventh century a.p. is thus approximately fixed, being the same place as is mentioned in the far older document. For here the Divyavadana, belonging to a period between the two, comes to our assistance. It gives, as the extreme eastern point, a town called Pundavardhana. Now a district with a name transliterated into Chinese as Pun-na-fa-tan-na (probably for Pali Punnavaddhana or Sanskrit Pundravardhana) was the very next point, in Yuan Chwang’s itinerary, beyond Kajangala, and to the east of it. And it will be recollected that in the old Vinaya passage it was not Kajangala itself, but the district or town to the east of it, which was given as the extreme easterly point of the Middle Country. The three texts, therefore, by these quite undesigned coincidences, confirm one another. And we are justified in accepting, as a working hypothesis, that the places mentioned are real places, and that we cannot be far wrong as to the locality in which they should be placed. 2. Mahasala, stated, in the Vinaya passage, to be beyond Kajangala to the east, has not been found mentioned else- where, so far as I know, in either Pali or Sanskrit texts, that is, in any geographical sense. In the sense of millionaire it is frequent. To discuss whether there be any connection between the two meanings would take us too far from our present point. There is a Chinese name used in Yuan Chwang which has been restored to Mahasila. But it cannot be the place referred to in the Vinaya passage; for though no two interpreters of Yuan Chwang agree as to what he meant its position to be, they all agree that it is not in the position required by the Vinaya text. It should be noticed that the Jataka text, with a change of gender, reads Mahasalo, and that the Maha-bodhi-vamsa omits the name altogether.THE MIDDLE COUNTRY OF ANCIENT INDIA. 89 3. The river Salalavati, at the south-east corner, is also not mentioned in other texts. But it is evidently the same as is given as Saravati, with other various readings, in the Divya- vadana as the most southerly point. The most southerly point in the older passage is, on the other hand, a town called Setakannika, on which also there is nothing else to say. 4. The most westerly point is given in the Vinaya as a brahmin village named Thiina. We learn from the story in the Udina (7. 9) that there was a brahmin village of that mame in the country of the Mallas. And from the Maha Janaka Jataka (vi, 62, 65), that there was also a town, not a village and not inhabited by brahmins, called Thina (with z, not ). This was close to the Himalayas. From the context it would seem to follow that it was close to the Himalayas at a point 60 yojanas north of Mithila (see pp. 55, 56). It is very certain, therefore, that this cannot be the place meant in the Vinaya, which was in the west of India. But the accounts of Alexander’s invasion of India mention a tribe of Mallas (Malloi) in the Panjab. They were settled at that time (326 s.c.) on the banks of the Ravi (say about 73°E. by 31°N.).! It is in this direction that the Thiina of the Vinaya must be sought for. It is not at all surprising that there should have been two different towns of the same name in different and distant settlements of the same tribe. The younger town is simply named after the older one. Other instances of the same kind, in the East, are Champa, Kamboja, Patitthana, and Madhura or Mathura. And in the colonies of European nations similar instances are well known. The Divyavadana gives two villages, Sthina and Upasthiinaka, both brahmin villages, as the western point. 5. The most northerly point is, in the Vinaya, the mount Usiraddhaja, called in the Divyavadina Usiragiri. One of the peaks in the lower range of the Himiilaya is here probably intended. It would be in accordance with these details if the boundary ) See Mr. Vincent Smith, J.R.A.S., 1903, p. 691.90 THE MIDDLE COUNTRY OF ANCIENT INDIA. of the Middle Country, starting from the extreme east im long. 73° E., sloping north-east to the lower Himilayas, andi following them to a point, not yet determined, in the extreme north, should then have still followed them till it sloped south-east to the extreme easterly point in long. 98° E. by lat. 25°N. Turning back, the boundary must have left Orissa to the: south. For we were told in the passage already quoted (above, p. 86) of a merchant travelling from Ukkala to the Middle Country. And Ukkala is Orissa. So Orissa, and a fortiori Kalinga, must have been outside. Thence towards Avanti the route followed cannot be determined till we can locate Setakannika, or the Salalavati river. Roughly speaking, it must have followed the course of the Vindhya range. One reason why we know little or nothing of the points on the way, is because it was then jungle, very sparsely populated. In Avanti we have again a fixed point. For the original passage in the Vinaya establishes only for the southern part of Avanti the exception laid down to the rule. That implies that the northern part was considered to be in the Middle Country. As Aryan settlements extended as far south as Patitthina (73° 2’ E. by 21° 42’ N.), the boundary may have run somewhere near there. But it is not probable that it ran exactly through that place, or the place would have been mentioned in our Vinaya text. It is already mentioned in older books.' Round the south-west corner also the boundary cannot as yet be traced. We can conjecture that it went from Avanti to the coast, either at Bharukaccha or Sovira, and probably followed the line of the Indus back to its original starting- point at the brahmin village of Thiina. But for exact details we must await the publications of other texts still buried in manuscript. If we have at all succeeded in discovering the real meaning of the term Middle Country as used in the old Vinaya text, 1 + Buddhist India,” pp. 30, 108, 111.THE MIDDLE COUNTRY OF ANCIENT INDIA. 9% then the measures of extent and circumference as handed down in the traditions of the Buddhist schools ought roughly to agree with our conclusions. The actual length of the route we have followed will be, measured in straight lines along the boundary, about 3,500 miles. As the boundary, both on the north and the south, follows the very irregular contour of the mountains, a traveller along the route would probably have to go twice that distance. The extreme points in the east in long. 98°, and in the west in long. 73°, are 25 degrees apart; say about 1,750 miles in a straight line. This is exactly the breadth of the Middle Country as given in the commentaries in the expression 250 yojanas = 1,750 miles. From south of Patitthina to the most northerly point our route would reach (somewhere near the Swat Valley), would be somewhat over 1,000 miles. As we do not know from which points the cross measurement given in the com- mentaries are supposed to be taken, we cannot here compare the results. The circumference is given at 900 yojanas; that is,. leagues or stages. Taking the yojana, according to my calculations, published in 1876, at about 7 to 7} miles,! this would give 6300-6500 miles, which is in practical accord with the route just suggested as having been meant in the Vinaya passage. By the Middle Country the Buddhists therefore meant the whole of Aryan North India. Of Aryan settlements in India the only ones they do not include are those on the coast of Orissa, and those on the coast of Kalinga, at Dantapura. These were both older than the date of the Vinaya passage, but were separated from the Aryans in North India by dense forests. It is also probable, but not certain, that the first Aryan colony had then been settled in Ceylon.’ If 80, that was, of course, also considered to lie outside the Middle- Country. 1 « Ancient Coins and Measures of Ceylon,” pp. 27-29, 2 See “ Buddhist India,”” pp. 33, 104.92 THE MIDDLE COUNTRY OF ANCIENT INDIA. The oldest use of the phrase in the brahmin books is in Manu (2. 21), which says :— “That (country) which (lies) between the Himalaya and ‘Vindhya mountains, to the east of the Destruction and to the west of Prayaga, is called the Middle Country (Madhyadega).” The Destruction (Vinagana in Jolly’s edition) is an ambiguous term. It is really derived from a blunder in the older texts descriptive of another idea, that of the Aryavarta. As Bihler already suggested, the reading of the oldest brahmin law manual, that of Vasista, presupposes a reading adaréa, which was corrupted into adaréana, ‘the dis- appearance,’ and that into vinagana or vindSana, ‘the destruction,’ an expression explained by the medi#val commentators to mean the place where the river Sarasvati disappeared, or was destroyed, in the sands. But the original reading meant simply the Adaréa Mountains. However this may be, what we find is that when the laws of Manu were put into their present form—that is, under the Guptas, when the brahmins were attaining the supremacy they have ever since retained—the idea of the Middle Country was restricted to that portion of the larger territory formerly included under the term in which the brahmins felt they had the greater influence. It is interesting to notice the gradual growth of this new conception. The oldest form of the narrower view is preserved, in Biihler’s opinion, in the Mahabhashya on Panini 2. 4. 10, where the Adaréa mountains are given as the western limit. It is there given as the description, not of the Middle Country, but of the Aryavarta, the district frequented by the Aryans, the Aryan Home. As such it could not be considered accurate except from the brahmin point of view. In the law books, or manuals of custom, older than Manu, the description, still given as applicable to the Aryan Home, is by way of introduction to the proposition 1 8.B.E., vol. xiv, p. 2.THE MIDDLE COUNTRY OF ANCIENT INDIA. 93 that customs there prevalent must be acknowledged else- where as authoritative. It is in Manu that, for the first time, the mental attitude comes out in strong relief. The priestly authors of that famous manual have thrown off all disguise. They make a much smaller division to be the land of authority, the land namely between the two rivers. Drsadvati and Sarasvati. That, according to them, is the land created by the gods—as if other lands were not. There, and there only, are the customs declared to be good. Lower, ethically, than that is, secondly, the land of the Kurus, Matsyas, Paiicalas, and Siirasenas. Men should learn their customs from a brahmin, not from a rajput or house- holder, born there. The Middle Country, reduced to less than half its original size, is put only in the third place. This really means, of course, merely that the brahmins thought themselves, and very likely were, at that time, more powerful in the districts to which they attach so much importance. It does not follow that they had previously been so, though there is less prejudiced evidence to show that it was in those lands that the brahmin sacrifices and ritual had been more especially favoured. So far as the Aryan civilisation was concerned with other matters, political, social, and economic, it was probably at its best in those parts of North India that had been settled by the more adventurous clans. And the older, more generous, view of the Middle Country was therefore, on the whole, more consonant, probably, with the actual historical facts. It would be possible to follow the investigation further on in later authors. But the object of this note is only to suggest a probable interpretation of the oldest passages in which the expression occurs. When Professor Oldenberg and myself published, in 1882, a translation of the oldest passage! we were only able to refer to parallel passages, and could suggest no identification of any of the names. The meaning of the phrase Middle Country was therefore unknown to us then; and no one, so far as I know, has discussed it since. 1 «Vinaya Texts,” ii, 38,