Note 173 — THE NIDĀNAKATHĀ OR THE THREE EPOCHS. (continued 2)

Majjhima-desa, of which the commentator adds, “This is the country thus spoken of in the Vinaya,” quoting the passage at Mahāvagga, v. 13, 12, which gives the boundaries as follows: “To the E. the town Kajaŋgala, and beyond it Mahāsālā; to the S.E. the river Salalavatī; to the S. the town Setakaṇṇika; to the W. the brāhman town and district Thūṇa; and to the N. the Usīraddhaja Mountain.” These are different from the boundaries of the Madhya Desa of later Brahminical literature, on which see Lassen’s ‘Indische Alterthumskunde,’ vol. i. p. 119 (2nd edition). This sacred land was regarded as the centre of Jambudvīpa; that is, of the then known world—just as the Chinese talk of China as the Middle Country, and as other people have looked on their own capital as the navel or centre of the world, and on their world as the centre of the universe.