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. Archaeological and epigraphic evidence therefore demonstrates the antiquity of Banavasi as a major settlement, although the later historical city and kingdom should not automatically be projected unchanged into the epic age. Modern Karnataka Tourism describes Banavasi as one of Karnataka’s oldest towns and the historic capital of the Kadambas.
The Mahabharata explicitly remembers the Kuntalas among the peoples of Bharatavarsha. In one of the geographical descriptions of the Bhishma Parva, the Kuntalas occur among the peoples and provinces of ancient India, while another passage places them specifically among the kingdoms of the south alongside the Dravidas, Keralas, Vanavashikas, Karanatakas and other southern peoples. This provides an important textual basis for associating the principal Kuntala country with the Deccan.
Ashmaka is particularly valuable it preserves a royal origin tradition for Ashmaka, associates the ruler with the foundation of Paudanya, includes the Ashmakas within the geographical catalogue of Bharat, and records Ashmaka warriors on the Pandava side during the Kurukshetra War.
The work is being carried out at Perikamana Illamparamba in the Kozhummal–Peralam area of Karivellur, where seven megalithic umbrella stones, locally known as kudakkals, have been identified.
The Maharashtra State Gazetteer identifies ancient Vidarbha with the old Berar region together with the eastern districts around Wardha, Nagpur, Chandrapur and Bhandara. It also describes Vidarbha as one of the oldest recorded geographical names associated with Maharashtra.
Abhira can therefore be placed broadly within western and southern Bharat, particularly across parts of modern Gujarat, Rajasthan, Sindh and the northern Konkan. However, unlike compact kingdoms such as Matsya, Chedi or Surasena, Abhira should not be represented as a single territory with permanently fixed borders. The Mahabharata itself appears to know Abhira communities in more than one geographical setting, while later historical evidence records their gradual expansion southward.
For our Mahabharata geographical map, Nasikya can be associated broadly with Nashik and adjoining northern Maharashtra, particularly the upper Godavari country around Nashik, Trimbakeshwar and the surrounding plateau. Its boundaries must nevertheless be shown as approximate rather than as a precisely documented Mahabharata kingdom.
Bharukachchha was also situated at one of western India’s most important natural gateways. The Narmada flows westward across the subcontinent and reaches the sea through the Bharuch region, connecting the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Khambhat with routes extending deep into central India. Centuries after the Mahabharata tradition, the same city became famous to Greek and Roman merchants as Barygaza, one of the major international ports described in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.
Surparaka should therefore be understood as more than the name of an ancient port. Within the Mahabharata it represents a sacred coastal region, political territory and pilgrimage centre on India’s western seaboard, while later archaeology reveals that the same place developed into one of the important maritime centres of ancient western India.
Aparanta therefore represents more than a distant coastal name in the Mahabharata. It connects the epic with the ancient maritime world of the Konkan, with the pilgrimage of Yudhishthira, with the traditions of Parashurama and with one of western India’s oldest known ports.
