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62 INDIA AS DESCRIBED IN EARLY TEXTS
(pp. 155, 415) as another centre of trade and commerce appears to have been the same place as Suvannakudya in the Arthaśāstra which Bhattasyāmi locates in Kāmarūpa.
III Himavanta-padesa (Himalayan region): According to all Indian traditions, Buddhist, Jaina and Brahmanical, Jambudvipa as the southern continent extended to the north up to the southern side of Mount Sumeru placed in the Mārkandeya Purana in the middle of a country called Ilāvsta containing two mountain ranges, the western called Malyavat and the eastern known as Gandhamādana. Tho Purāņa locates the four mountains: Mandara, Merumandara, Supäráva and Kumuda on the east, south, west and north sides of Sumeru respectively. The river Jambu taking its rise in the Merumandara mountain, flows down through the Lāvstavarsa.2 The Nişadha (Pali Nisabha) 8 mountain range is placed to the south of the Ilāvştavarşa to the south of which lay the country of Harivarşa. In between Bhāratavarşa and Hariyarşa are placed the Himalayan range and the Hemakūta, the former lying to the south of the latter. This is also the setting of the countries and mountain ranges to be found in the Jambudiva-pannatti and Mahābhārata.
1 N. N. Das Gupte in Indian Oulture, vol. v, p. 339. 2 Markandeya Purina, Oh. 67. & Jätaka, vi, pp. 204, 212; Apadāna, i, p. 67.
