In the previous episode, we had witnessed Sanjaya explaining a few important pointers pertaining to the contours of our Bhaarata Desha during those times. As we see our political map today, our current neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh (Anga Desha), Afghanistan (Gaandhaara Desha), parts of Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore were all part of our Bhaarata Desha in yesteryears. It is only post independence, all these other countries were separated and demarcated. Moreover, Sanjaya explains the various rivers that originate in our Bhaarata Desha and why they are considered to be extremely spiritual and holy in nature. Thus, in a nutshell, Sanjaya explains how our Bhaarata Desha is the land of “Sanaatana Dharma” and it will always be the case in the future as well. No matter how much ever some people try to infect this country with the false narratives of “Secularism” today, our Bhaarata Desha will remain the land of “Sanaatana Dharma” forever.
Moving on thus, Sanjaya now talks about the various kingdoms that existed within our Bhaarata Desha. I shall just list a few of them for our readers’ understanding, however, we can later on have a detailed description of each of these kingdoms, along with their geographical locations. Sanjaya talks about the Gaandhaara Desha, Kekeya Desha, Kalinga Desha, Magadha Desha, Anga Desha, Mithila Desha, Kaashi Desha, etc. which exist in the northern part of the country. Of course, there are many more, but these are the key ones, and hence worth mentioning. Similarly as we move south, Sanjaya talks about the Dravida Desha, Kerala Desha, Chola Desha, Paandya Desha, Karnataka Desha, Chera Desha, etc. As we see here, the Dravida Desha has a special mention and in fact, this is the first kingdom that Sanjaya is talking about. Hence, we can see how much importance did the Dravida Desha have even in those days. Moreover, it is very interesting to see that there are mentions of the names “Keralam”, “Karnatakam”, etc. in the Mahabharata itself. Today we have separate South-Indian states of Kerala and Karnataka, but it is worth noting here that these names existed even during those times.
Thus, together from the Himalayas in the north till Kanyakumari in the south, this entire “Punya Bhoomi” is collectively referred to as the “Bhaarata Desha”, along with its various significant mountain ranges, rivers, plateaus, lakes, ponds, practices, spirituality, etc. Even during those times, if we refer to several other texts apart from the Mahabharata, we would find mentions of innumerable “Punya-Kshetras” like Dwaaraka, Kaashi (Varanasi), Rudra Prayagam, Prayagraj, Kurukshetra, Somanath, Ujjain, Pushkar, Kolhapur, Pandharpur, Kumbakonam, Tanjavur, Madurai, Tirunelveli, Trichy, Srirangam, etc. which, even today, adorn the Bhaarata Desha like divine garlands of our “Sanaatana Dharma”. Each of these places, right from the north (“Utthara Bhaaratham”) till the south (“Dakshina Bhaaratham”) have their own significances, and as ardent followers of our Sanaatana Dharma, we should take the effort to visit these holy places whenever we find time. Only if we visit these places, will we be able to understand the real significance that lies in each of them. Merely reading about all these will not serve the purpose.
So for today, let us understand up to this point with regards to Sanjaya’s detailed description and we shall continue this in the next episode as well to witness how our Bhaarata Desha is truly the land of “Sanaatana Dharma” and nothing else! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 