North Indian Inscriptions

POLITICAL HISTORY

tīrtha or sacred place. There is just a passage in the Vanaparvan of the Mahābhārata which distinguishes between two kinds of tīrthas, those which are situated on the earth (pṛithivī) and those, in the mid-region (antariksha). The passage to which our attention was first drawn by J. C. Ghosh¹ runs thus:

pṛithivyāṁ yāni tīrthāni antarikshacharāṇi cha |
nadyō hradās=taḍāgāś=cha sarva-prasravaṇāni cha ||
.......................................................(Chap. 83, verse 193).

       There can be no doubt that tīrthas on earth have here been differentiated from those in the firmament. Ghosh rightly remarks that “here pṛithivī should be taken as ‘the plains’ and antariksha as a high peak of some mountain almost reaching up to the sky.” That this distinction between the tīrthas was not an imaginary one may be seen from the line pṛithivyāṁ Naimishaṁ tīrtham=antarikshē cha Pushkaram (verse 203), which occurs further in the same chapter of the Vanaparvan. Of these two, Naimisha has been identified with Nimkhār or Namsār,² not far from the Nimsar Railway station. There can thus be no doubt as to Naimisha being a tīrtha on the plains. some doubt may, However, arise as to Pushkara. Because the tīrtha which is at present known by this name is the celebrated pushkar Lake, six miles from Ajmer, which, however, is on the plains, and, not on a mountain peak, may thus be looked upon as a tīrtha on pṛithivī, and, not in antariksha. There is, however, a Pushkara a-tīrtha Which is apparently to be located in the Himālayas. Thus the Sabhāparvan³ of the Mahābhārata has the following:

punaś = cha parivṛitty =ātha Pushkar-āraṇyavāsinaḥ |
gaṇān=Utsavasaṁkētān vyajayat purusharshabhaḥ ||

       â€œAnd having turned his back again, the bull among men (Nakula) Then conquered the tribes called the Utsavasaṁkētas residing in the Pushkara forest.” Utsavasaṁkēta in mentioned by Kālidāsa in his Raghuvaṁśa IV, 78, and is believed to be “a Sanskrit word formed by the combination of the names of the Tibetan provinces bordering on India-U’tschang, Bostan and Khotan.”⁴ And as these Utsavasaṁkētas are said to have occupied the Pushkara forests, the latter must have been situated in the Himālayan regions, where India met Tibet. Naturally, therefore, this Pushkara, being on an exceedingly higher altitude than the plains, can easily be described as a tīrtha in the mid-region. And curiously enough, Pushkara, like Vishṇupada, is a synonym of Antariksha according to the Amarakōśa ( I. 2. 1-2).

       To return to our point, how was Vishṇupada exactly situated-Vishṇupada where the pillar was originally erected? Where this Vishṇupada is precisely to be located is a question which we will consider in details a little further on. But what we have stated above is enough to show that it was somewhere near the origin of the Vipāśā (Beas). That surely indicated a sufficiently high altitude to enable us to class it under antariksha-tīrthas. And, as a matter of fact, Durgāchārya, the commentator, while explaining a passage from Yāska, unequivocally locates Vishṇupada in antariksha, as Ghosh has pointed out.⁵ And further, we have to note that even the Amarakōśa⁶ gives Vishṇupada as a synonym of antariksha. How could this word have acquired the sense of ‘the mid-region?’ It is true that Kshīrasvāmin, who has written a commentary upon the Amarakōśa, says: Vishṇōḥ padaṁ kramō=tra Vishṇupadam.⁷ But this is
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¹ IC., Vol. I, p. 516.
² Nundolal Dey, Geographical Dictionary, etc., p. 135.
³ Chap. 32, verses 8-9.
⁴ JBORS., Vol. II, p. 36.
⁵ IC., Vol. I, p. 516.
⁶ I.2.2.
⁷ And, in fact, this is supported by what we are told in the Udyōga-parvan (Chap. 110, verses 21-22) namely, that in covering the three worlds Vishṇu with one stride created what is called Vishṇupada situated in the northern region and not far from Kailāsa.