Madhya Desa
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Madhya Desa
('the middle country '). — At present this name is not infrequently used by Hindus for the Ganges and Jumna Doab. It had a more extended meaning formerly ; and in early times it probably included the tract lying between the place (at Bhatner in Rajputana) where the SaraswatI disappears on the west and Allah- abad on the east, stretching to the Himalayas on the north and the vindhyas on the south. This was the area within which Brahmanism had its rise and full development, and it is still regarded as a holy land of Hinduism. But according to Varaha Mihira, the Sanskrit geographer of the sixth century a. D., the Madhya Desa extended as far west as Marwar, while the Yamunas, or people living on the banks of the Jumna, were partly in this and partly in the northern country, and the Vindhyas are wholly excluded. Albiruni explained it as the country lying round Kanauj.
[Lassen, Ind. Alt.^ vol. i, p. 92 ; Fleet, Ind. Ant.^ 1893, p. 169.]
