The Five Rivers of the Buddhists

By W. Hoey, D.Lit., I.C.S.(Retd).
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
1907, pp. 41-46

p. 41
Fa-Hian tells us that a journey of four yojanas to the
east from Vaisali brought him to "the confluence of the five
rivers," and that then, crossing the river (the Ganges) and
going south for one yojana, he arrived at Pataliputra in the
kingdom of Magadha.
There is not, and there can never have been in historical
times, any actual meeting of five rivers at or near Patali-
putra, i.e. Patna. We can, however, easily understand what
Fa-hian meant if we turn to the Buddhist books and observe
the special connection of certain rivers mentioned together.
In the Vinayapitaka, for instance, we find in the Cullavagga,
9. 1, 3, and 4 (S.B.E., 20. 301f., 304), the Ganga, the
Yamuna, the Aciravati, the Sarabhu, and the Mahi, mentioned
as "the great rivers"; and in the Milindapanha, 4. 1, 35, we
meet again with these rivers and five others, in the
following passage (text, 114; S.B.E., 35. 171):-- "There are
five hundred rivers which flow down 'from the Himavanta
mountain; but of these ten only are reckoned in enumerations
of rivers--the Ganga, the Yamuna, the Aciravati, the Sarabhu,
the Mahi, the Sindhu, the Sarasvati the Vetravati, the
Vitamsa, and the Chandrabhaga --the others not being included
in the catalogue because of their intermittent flow of
water." This latter passage gives us two groups of rivers,
five in each group, which rise in the Himalayas, and we know
so many main rivers which have been omitted, and yet cannot
have been omitted because their flow is intermittent, that we
feel compelled to seek for some more satisfactory reason for
an apparently invidious selection. That reason is to be found
in the Buddhist system
p. 42
of the universe, which has been expounded by Hardy in the
opening chapter of his Manual of Buddhism. The following
quotations from pages 15 to 17 will suffice to illustrate the
point:-
"The great forest is in the northern part of Jambudwipa,
which, from the southern extremity, gradually increases in
height, until it attains an elevation of 500 yojanas, in the
mountains of Gandhamadana, Kailasa, Chitrakuta, and others,
there being in all 84,000.. These mountains are inhabited by
an infinite number of dewas and yakas, and are beautified by
500 rivers, filled with the most delicious water, and by the
seven great lakes, among which is the Anotatta-wila. This
lake is 800 miles long, and as many broad and deep; and there
are four places in it in which the Budhas, Pase-Budhas,
rahats, and rishis are accustomed to bathe; and six other
places where the dewas from the six inferior heavens bathe.
..... On the four sides of Anotatta are four mouths or doors,
whence proceed as many rivers; they are, the lion-mouth, the
elephant, the horse, and the bull. The banks of these rivers
abound with the animals from which they take their name. The
rivers that pass to the north-east and west flow three times
round the lake without touching each other, and after passing
through countries not inhabited by man, fall into the sea.
The river that runs to the south also passes three times
round the lake, then rushes from the midst of a rock, and
flows in a straight line 60 yojanas.. It then strikes against
another rock, and rises into the sky, like a mount of gems 12
miles in size, flows through the sky for the space of 60
jojanas, and strikes against the rock Tiyaggala. This rock it
has broken by its immense force; and after this it violently
rushes on a further space of 60 yojanas, after which it flows
on an inclined plane, strikes and breaks the ponderous
Pansu-parwata or Five Mountains, and again passes on 60
yojanas. It then flows 60 yojanas further, through a cave,
strikes the four-sided rock Wijja, and is lastly divided into
five streams, like five fingers, that are the five great
livers (Ganga, Yumuna, Acirawati, Sarabhu, and Mahi), which,
after watering Jambudwipa, fall into the sea."
Here we have both the five hundred rivers of the
Milindapanha and the five rivers of the Vinayapitaka. The
latter flow into each other, not all at one place, but
consecutively. We must understand "the confluence of the
p. 43
five rivers " as denoting the place where the fifth and last
of them flows into the already united stream of the other
four. And thus we arrive, as will be explained below, at a
confluence of five rivers in the neighbourhood of Patna, as
stated by Fa-hian. Further, we now see that Fa-hian's
expression,'' the confluence of the five rivers," had a
specific meaning which was so familiar to the ordinary
Ruddlnist of his day as to obviate the necessity of naming
the rivers. And it is possible that a further knowledge of
the crude but graphic details of the Ruddhist notions of the
geography of India, as described in this system of the
universe, might help us to elucidate other problems which
arise in connection with the records of the travels of the
Chinese pilgrims. How far and how long the geographical myth
of the origin of the rivers in the Himalayan watershed has
misled the natives of India and China, may be realized when
we observe that a map of India prepared in Japan in 1710 to
illustrate those travels, and reproduced in Julien's
Me'moires sur les Contrees Occidentales, shows the rivers
issuing from the mouths of animals as mentioned in the
passage which I have quoted from Rardy's work.
What are "the five rivers" of Fa-hian? The Ganga and
Yamuna, the Ganges and the Jamna, are known to everyone; as
also is their confluence at Prayaga, Allahabad. The Sarabhu
is the modern Sarju or Gogra; it is the Sarabos of Ptolemy,
and the Sanskrit Sarayu, on which Valmiki, in Ramayana, i. 5,
6, places the city of Ayodhya. The Aciravati is the Airavati,
the modern Rapti; and when we remember that Airavata was the
elephant of Indra, we see how it is that this system of five
rivers issues from the mouth of an elephant.1 The Rapti
(Aciravati) flows into the Sarju, or Gogra (Sarabhu, Sarayu),
in lat. 26 15', long. 83 42', between Barhaj in the
Gorakhpur district and Dharampur in the Azamgarh district;
and the united two rivers flow into the Ganges near Revelganj
in the
-----------------------------
1. The Indus (Sindhu) issues from lion's mouth. Hence that
river is called Sinh ka bab. the lion's gate or mouth.
p. 44
Saran district. 1 Finally, the river which is now known as
the Mahi flows actually into the Gandak, the Great Gandak,
about half a mile above its junction with the Ganges, but
practically into the Ganges, near Sonpur (Sonepore), in the
same district.
Regarding this latter river, the Mahi, which is not so
well known as the others, I must make the following
observations. The identity of it was not known to me when I
wrote in J.A.S.B., 1900. 74 ff., about the location of
Vaisali. The first clue was given to me by a Resident
Engineer of the Bengal and North-Western Railway, who
reminded me that, on its course from Sewan to Paleza Ghat,
the line crosses a river shown in the railway-map as
'Mhye.'(2) And he informed me that, when he was surveying for
the alignment, there was trouble with the learned and
priestly Brahmans of the locality, who claimed that the name
Mahi should be retained, instead of being replaced by that of
another river, the Gandaki, which flows into it. But the
identity of the Mahi does not rest upon only the information
so given to me. The river is mentioned as the "Mahi nadi" in
the Statistical Account of Bengal, 11 (1877). 358, as
intersecting the Kasmar pargana of the Saran district; and
-----------------------------
1. It's to be noted that at a point about sixteen miles above
the confluence of the Gogra and the Rapti, and near a
place called Muhoolah, just west of Dohri, in the Azamgarh
district, there branches off to the south and south-east a
river,.shown in Indian Atlas Sheet No. 103 as 'Surjoo
Suddee,' which flows into the Ganges at Ballia. It is not
an insigniticant stream; the Gazetteer of the Ballia
district tells us, on p. 128, that it is "navigable for
large country vessels for five or six months in the vear
and for small boats all.the year round." And it may be
added that, at the place where this river leaves the
Gogra, the latter river has to be strongly embanked and
protected by spurs to beep it to its present course. The
plans and estimates have passed through me officially. In
fact, the people of the Azamgarh and Ballia districts
allege that the 'Surjoo Nuddee' runs in the original bed
of the Gogra, and it is feared that the latter river may
so break its present south hank as to return wholly to its
old course. It is not impossible that in ancient times,
and in fact in the davs of Fa-hian and Hiuen Tsiang, this
Sarjh Nuddee was the real bed of the Gogra; that there was
then no stream between Muhoolah-Dohri and Barhaj; and that
consequently the Gogra had its confluence with the united
Ganges and Jamna at Ballia, and the Rapti had its own
separate confluence with the united three streams near
Revilganj. I show the Surjoo Nuddee by a dotted line in
the annexed sketch-map.
2. This form was evidently borrowed from the same form estab-
lished many long years ago in the case of the river Mahi of
Western India, which flows into the Gulf of Cambay.
p. 45
that though its total course is only some forty to forty-five
miles, it's not an insignificnt stream, is shown by the facts
there stated, that it's navigable for boats of 600 maunds all
the year round and that during the rains boats of all sizes
can go up it. Further, the whole course of the Mahi with the
name attached throughout is shown in the Bengal Survey Sheets
Nos. 83, 84, 113, and 114, of 1902 to 1904.1 The Mahi leaves
the Gandak, the Great Gandak, at Sarangpur, 2 in lat. 26 9',
long. 84 58', about eleven miles towards the south-east from
Dighwa-Dubauli, well known as the find-place of an ancient
copper-plate record (I.A., 15. 105). Flowing through a cut in
the Saran embankment on the south of the Great Gandak, and
passing a large village called Amnaur, it comes eventually to
Sitalpur, about nineteen miles on the east of Chhapra. There
it receives the waters of the Gandaki. And, the latter river
then losing its own name, the two united rivers flow on under
the name of the Mahi into the Gandak, or, as said above,
practically into the Ganges.
Whether the Mahi of the present day is the ancient
Mahi-that is, whether its bed marks the original riveris
perhaps open to question. My opinion is that the name is an
ancient name of the Gandak, the Great Gandak; that the latter
river was flowing along its present course in the times of
Fa-hian and Hiuen Tsiang; and that in the modern Mahi we have
a branch, or an overflow-channel, of the Gandak, by transfer
to which the ancient name has been preserved. But, however
that may be, it has now been made cl ear that a river known
as the Mahi still exists in the exact locality indicated by
Fa-hian. I append a small map showing the five rivers of the
Buddhists, referred to by Fa-hian. I think it will illustrate
how apt is the simile in the passage quoted from Hardy's
-----------------------------
1. In the Indian Atlas Sheet, No. 103 of 1857, with additions
to 1895, the name Mahi is not shown, and the course of the
river is given under the name of 'Kuthar N (uddee).'
2. There is another Sarangpur exactly 25 miles due west of
this, on the Gandaki.
p. 46
Manual, which compares them with the five fingers of an out-
spread hand--the Ganges below Patna being like the arm.
I would add some brief remarks on two other points of
importance, which I shall treat more fully on another
occasion.
The place at which Fa-hian crossed the Ganges to enter the
Magadha kingdom--located by him roughly one yojana towards
the north from Pataliputra -- is certainly the Paleza-Digha
Ghat or crossing, about three and a half miles on the
north-west of the western end of Patna. Here the Ganges is
held in by steep banks which have probably confined its
stream from most ancient times.
Fa-hian reached the confluence of the five rivers and the
crossing-place of the Ganges by going four yojanas to the
east from Vaisali. This locates Vaisali, or some part of it,
about four yojanas to the west from Paleza Ghat. With the
yojana = 4 6/11 or roughly 4 1/2 miles (see this Journal,
1906, 1012), we have a distance of eighteen miles, which
takes us to Cherand, seven miles towards the southeast by
east of Chhapra. There are quite sufficient ancient remains
at, between, and in the neighbourhood of Chhapra and Cherand
to support my opinion, already expressed in .J.A.S.B., 1900.
77 ff., that is the position of Vaisali.