1876.] 



at Delhi three thousand years ago. 



375 



Tamra island, Timingila, or the country of the whale, Kalinga, Andhra, 

 Udra, Kerala, Talavana, Ceylon, and other places. On his way home, 

 he passed along the western coast through Surat to G-uzerat where he 

 met Krishna and the other Yadava chiefs, and finally returned home, loaded 

 with immense wealth and many valuable presents. 



Nakula, at the head of the army of the West, first went to Eohitaka ; 

 thence towards southern Eajpiitana to Mahettha, Sivi, Trigarta, Ambashtha, 

 Malava, Panchakarphatas, Madhyamaka, Vatadhana ; and, then retracing his 

 steps to Pushkara, and next the Abhira country on the banks of the Sarasvati, 

 he marched on to the Panjab, to the western frontier of which he encountered 

 the Pahnavas, Varvaras, Kiratas, Yavanas, and the S'akas, from all of whom 

 he obtained valuable presents, and acknowledgment of allegiance. 



In making the above abstract of the progress of the different armies, I 

 have omitted several names of places and persons, and also used words to 

 indicate directions which do not always occur in the original. The routes, as 

 laid down in the Mahabharata, are not always such as an invading army would, 

 or conveniently could, take in its progress from Indraprastha, and many rea- 

 sons suggest themselves to show that the poet was not quite familiar with 

 the places he describes. Some of the discrepancies, however, may be due to 

 my inability to identify the several places named, and to the possibility of 

 there having existed more than one place of the same name, one of which 

 is known to me, and the other not. Several districts in northern and eastern 

 Bengal now claim to be the same with places named in the Mahabharata, 

 but which probably have no right to the pretension. In a few cases, there 

 are two or three claimants for the same ancient name. As it is, however, 

 not my intention here to enter into a critical analysis, but simply to quote 

 the substance of what has been said, in connexion with the Bajasuya, in the 

 Mahabharata, by way of introduction to the rituals of the sacrifice as given in 

 the Vedas, I need say nothing further on the subject. Those who are curious 

 about the places named, and about the articles alleged to have been present- 

 ed as tribute, which, to a certain extent, help the identification of those places, 

 will find much interesting matter in the late Professor Lassen's learned essay 

 on the Geography of the Mahabharata, in the Grottingen Oriental Journal, 

 and in Professor Wilson's paper on the Sabha-parva in the Journal of the 

 Royal Asiatic Society of London. 



On the return of the different expeditionary armies, a consultation was 

 held as to the propriety of immediately commencing the ceremony, or def er- 

 ingit to a future occasion. Krishna advised immediate action, and agreed to 

 take upon himself the task of arranging everything for a successful issue. 

 It was accordingly resolved that the ceremony should at once begin. Or- 

 ders were thereupon issued to collect all the articles necessary for the rite ; 

 invitations were sent out to all relatives, friends, allies and tributaries, the 

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