Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/54



In order to fix with some definiteness the land which was the principal home of the non-Aryan Vangas, let us follow the geography of the ancient time, as we find in the Mahābhārata and in the Purāṇas. I am strongly inclined to think, that the eastern portion of the indefinite tract which was once called Kālaka-vana, and which once formed the eastern boundary of Āryāvarta, came to be designated as Jhāḍakhaṇḍa in comparatively later times. It is pretty clear that the name Jhāḍakhaṇḍa came to be associated with the tract which lay to the south of Gaya, to the east of Shahabad, to the south of Bhagalpur and to the west of Bankura and Midnapur. The temple of Baidyanāth at Deoghar in Bengal (now in Bihar), is still considered to be situated in the Jhāḍakhaṇḍa tract, for the priests of Baidyanāth recite a mantra by indicating this geography, in worshipping the image of Baidyanāth. A portion of Jhāḍakhaṇḍa got the name Rāḍha or Lādha as we notice in the Jaina records. The Avāranga Sutta of the Jainas, though it narrates things of Buddhistic and pre-Buddhistic era, was composed at a time which may be regarded recent. According to the accounts of this book, the temple of Baidyanāth is in Rāḍha or Lādha country. The people who inhabited Rāḍha are described to be black-skinned and rude in manners, and are reported to have been fond of robbing the pious Jaina intruders.