Akhanda Bharath

The Bhishma Parva contains one of the Mahabharata’s extraordinary surveys of Bharatavarsha. After describing northern, eastern and central regions, the text turns towards the south and names numerous peoples including the Dravidas, Keralas, Mushikas, Vanavashikas, Karanatakas, Mahishakas, Kuntalas and Cholas. The placement leaves little doubt that the Cholas belonged to the recognised political geography of southern India.

The clearest reference to Mushika occurs in the Bhishma Parva, during the description of the peoples and countries occupying Bharatavarsha. The text moves through an enormous catalogue stretching across the subcontinent and then turns towards the south, naming the Dravidas, Keralas, Prachyas, Mushikas and Vanavashikas, followed by Karanatakas, Mahishakas, Kuntalas, Cholas and numerous other peoples. The placement is important because it firmly establishes the Mushikas within the southern geographical world recognised by the epic.

The geographical lists are especially revealing because they regularly associate the Tosalas with peoples such as the Kosalans, Utkalas, Mekalas, Dasharnas and other communities connected with eastern and central India. The Markandeya and other Puranic traditions place the Tosalas among regions associated with the Vindhyan sphere, suggesting that ancient Tosala was not conceived simply as a narrow strip of beach. Its connections reached inland towards the uplands and the routes linking Odisha with Dakshina Kosala and central India.

The Mahabharata preserves Odra primarily as the name of a recognised people, the Odras or Audras, rather than giving us a long description of a clearly bounded kingdom. One of the most revealing references appears in connection with Yudhishthira’s Rajasuya sacrifice at Indraprastha. When the splendour of that imperial gathering is remembered, rulers and peoples from across Bharata are described as having assembled there, including the Vangas, Angas, Paundras and Odras.

The Bhishma Parva contains one of the great geographical catalogues of the Mahabharata. As the regions and peoples of Bharatavarsha are enumerated, the text names the Dasharnas, Mekalas and Utkalas in succession. Elsewhere in the same catalogue appear Kalinga, Anga, Vanga, Andhra, Pundra, Tamralipta and numerous other eastern and southern peoples. Utkala therefore belonged firmly within the epic’s mental map of India.

The Mahabharata does not treat Kalinga as an obscure territory at the edge of the known world. It repeatedly names the Kalingas among the established peoples and kingdoms of Bharata, places Kalinga within important eastern political networks, describes its rulers participating in great royal gatherings and, eventually, portrays its army fighting with formidable strength on the field of Kurukshetra. Kalinga was therefore part of the epic’s political geography as a recognisable and important eastern realm.

Other geographical traditions identified the Mahishakas with southern Mysore, broadly corresponding to the upper Kaveri country of modern Karnataka. The Mahabharata’s own placement of the Mahishakas among explicitly southern peoples provides strong support for treating a southern Mahishaka as a distinct geographical possibility.

. 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.