The area of the present political Orissa is 40,000 square miles. The states of Kalahandi, Patna, Sonpur and Baud were, very likely, not within the Orissa Province in Hiuen Tsang's time, though the Utkala people were dominant in these states. Some portions of the district of Sambalpur are also supposed by scholars to have been included in the Southern Kosal. Again the southern portions of Khurda subdivision in the district of Puri may be supposed to have been included in the Kongada country or the modern Ganjam district which is said in the epigraphic records to have been dominated by the Odra people. Hence the boundaries of ancient Orissa I have discussed above, will very likely be convincing to scholars, because the area of the tracts within the boundaries mentioned above, is not less than 8,000 square miles. In conclusion it may be suggested to scholars that at least 4 square miles should be taken for one

li to get the areas of other countries Hiuen Tsang visited.

III-A Note on Vajjabhumi and

Subbhabhumi.

By B. Singh Deo, B.A.

The first glimpse we get of Mayurbhanj is that afforded by the Jaina preachers who had given accounts of this country in their sacred scriptures. Formerly it was known as

Vajjabhūmi". And Mayurbhanj is still called "Bhañjabhūmi”. Perhaps "Vajjabhūmi" is the corrupt form of "Bhañjabhūmi". Most probably the rulers of this land were designated as "Bhañja-bhūpati" (Orissa in the Making, p. 124).

Mr. M. M. Chakravarty held in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (New Series), Vol. IV, pp. 285, 286 :

In the Ayarānga-sütta, ranking among the oldest Jaina scriptures, the Mahavira "travelled in the pathless countries of the Ladhas, in Vajjabhūmi and Subbhabhūmi; he used there miserable beds and miserable seats. Even in the faithful part of the rough country, the dogs bit him, ran at him. Few people kept off the attacking, biting dogs. Striking the monk they cried chu-chu, and made the dogs bite him. Such were the inhabitants. Many other mendicants, eating rough food in Vajjabhūmi, and carrying about a strong pole or a stalk (to keep off the dogs) lived there. Even thus armed they were bitten by dogs, torn by the dogs. It is difficult to travel in Ladha." But unfortunately, Mr. Chakravarty has identified these two countries with Radha and Suhma, respectively. Ladha may not be the corrupt form of Radha. It comes from the original Sanskrit word "Lubdhaka", i.e. a hunter. And its Pāli form is "Luddo" which in its turn has changed to Ladha. Ladhas are a hill tribe. They belong to the Chubar class. Hunting is their chief profession and they are very fond of keeping dogs

for this purpose. Still they are predominant in the hilly tracts of Vajjabhūmi and Subbhabhūmi and their customs and manners are very rude. Farther, the Jainas were not foreign travellers. The names of the different parts of the country were well known to them. We cannot expect such a gross mistake from them that they would write Ladha in the place of Radha.

It is therefore possible to identify these two countries with modern "Bhañjabhūmi" and "Simhabhūmi", i.e. the present district of Singhbhum,

NOTICES OF BOOKS

I-International Law in Ancient India By S. V.Viswanatha, M.A., pp. x. 214: Longmans, Rs. 6.

It is doubtful whether there was anything which can correctly be described as International Law in Ancient India. International Law, in any strict sense of the term, is essentially a modern growth. It is only in comparatively recent times that there have existed nations which, on the one hand, are characterised by so extreme a particularism as to have practically no common ties, and which yet are brought day by day into the closest diplomatic relations with one another. These are the two fundamental conditions which have given rise to the purely artificial but highly elaborate body of rules which constitutes International Law. Where the extreme particularism of which we have spoken is absent-as, for example, among the self-governing units which make up the British Common wealth of Nations, or again among the great fiefs included in the Meliæval Empire of Western Europe (to say nothing of the unifying influence of Papal authority); or even among the politically independent city-states of Ancient Greece, whose common civilisation made them one and Hellenic in spite of all their differences-it is clearly a straining of language to describe as International Law the rules and conventions governing the normal relations between the component units. But it is precisely this type of only partially differentiated units (whether we call them "national" units, or not) which we find in Ancient India. On the other hand, where the particularism was marked-as, for example, between India and China, in the ancient world-diplomatic

intercourse, except of the most rudimentary and intermittent kind, and with it International Law, was practically nonexistent.

This, indeed, is a fundamental objection to what-scholarly and well-documented as it is-purports to be a treatise on International Law in Ancient India; and one cannot but regret that so much erudition has, from this point of view, been obviously misapplied. Moreover, whatever our definition of International Law, the modern terminology which Mr. Viswanatha employs-rights and obligations, and the rest is manifestly out of place; and the author's elaborate scheme of classification, borrowed from modern text-books on the subject, besides being inappropriate, involves much needless repetition. Finally, a good deal of what the author has to tell us-interesting as it may be, in itself-has not the remotest connection with International Law, however loosely defined.

The material strictly relevant to his subject, as Mr. Viswanatha has defined it, boils down, as one would have expected, to very little. The inviolability of the person of a duly accredited ambassador was universally recognised. To say, however, as Mr. Viswanatha does (p. 76), that an ambassador was" exempt from local jurisdiction" is surely an unwarrantable translation of the present into the past; while, as a matter of fact, the author cites (p. 18), on the authority of the Rāmāyaṇa, "certain recognised punishments that could be meted out to an offending envoy". What Mr. Viswanatha has to tell us (p. 167) about the pledges, usually in the shape of hostages, designed to strengthen treaty obligations, is interesting; but it is in a somewhat uncritical spirit that he observes (p. 50) that "in most cases, non-fulfilment of the conditions of a treaty implied not only the odium of the other states, but war against it by the others and its possible extinction". His treatment of what he calls the general ethics of warfare" is marked by the same uncritical spirit. We cannot well accept his statement (p. 156), whatever his anthority, that "such fields were chosen as sites for battle as