Boundaries of Ancient Maharashtra and Karnataka

Summary

A. P. Karmarkar’s article investigates the territorial limits of ancient Maharashtra and Karnataka, two cultural zones in peninsular India whose extents have long been debated. Drawing on textual sources such as the Puranas, the Mahabharata, the Aitareya Brahmana, Ashokan edicts and later inscriptions, Karmarkar reconstructs how these regions were conceived. He notes that early literature divides India into Aryavarta and Dakshinapatha, with the Vindhya range marking the division. Within the south, the Aitareya Brahmana lists kingdoms like the Andhras and Pundras. The term ‘Maharashtra’ appears later, primarily in medieval sources like the Lajja Grant, referring to a region from the Godavari to the Kaveri including Vidarbha and Kuntala. Similarly, the term ‘Karnataka’ originally denoted the Kanara coastal districts but later expanded to include territories between the western ocean and Dandakaranya, often overlapping with Kuntala. Karmarkar analyses variations in the size of these regions across inscriptions, emphasising how political expansion by the Chalukyas and Rashtrakutas blurred boundaries. He discusses Xuanzang’s description of Maharashtra as a land with 900 towns and fifty-five thousand villages and considers these figures exaggerated but reflective of the region’s importance. By the time of Pulakeshin II, Maharashtra extended from the Godavari to the Narmada and included much of the Deccan, while Karnataka lay south of the Godavari down to the Kaveri. The article concludes that the boundaries were fluid, influenced by dynastic fortunes rather than fixed geographical demarcations.