Puzzle of Small and Big India

[Klaus Karttunen]

Erik Hoogcarspel wrote:
> 
> What he referred to was the limited geographical knowledge in Europe
> during the Middle Ages, India was a mythical place somewhere out there
> and just a word for the unknown land on the other side of Jerusalem,
> which was thought of as the centre of the world. There was no big India,
> but an unknown mythical India.
> 
> Narayan R.Joshi wrote:
> ...
The original question was not of Middle Ages but of "ancient times",
when there also was some geographical knowledge. According to Ptolemy,
India consisted of two parts, India on this side and India on the other
side of the Ganges and the latter also included all Southeast Asia.
Therefore we still have Indonesia or the Indian Archipelago (with Greek
nêsos, island) and that is also why "East Indies" originally got its
plural. But Iran and Central Asia (as well as China and Sri Lanka) were
dealt with separately, they were not considered part of India. The idea
of the Western border of India they had in the ancient West changed,
some put it along the Indus, some, probably following the western border
of the Mauryas, along the Hindukush. As far as the Middle Ages are
concerned, Eric was right. For several authors India really was a
mythical land somewhere beyond Jerusalem and in some cases Iran (and
still more often Ethiopia) seems to be included. New information started
to come in the 13th and 14th centuries and now also Ptolemy was studied
again. Then came Columbus and further confused the things with his "West
Indies". 

Regards
Klaus

-- 
Klaus Karttunen, Ph.D.
Docent of Indology and Classical Ethnography
Institute of Asian and African Studies
PL 59 (Unioninkatu 38 B), 00014 University of Helsinki, FINLAND
phone 358-0-19122188, fax 358-0-19122094