Uttarapatha, Uttara-patha, Uttarāpatha: 15 definitions
Introduction:
Uttarapatha means something in Buddhism, Pali, Hinduism, Sanskrit, the history of ancient India. If you want to know the exact meaning, history, etymology or English translation of this term then check out the descriptions on this page. Add your comment or reference to a book if you want to contribute to this summary article.
In Hinduism
Purana and Itihasa (epic history)
Uttarāpatha (उत्तरापथ).—North Bhārata. (Mahābhārata Śānti Parva, Chapter 207, Stanza 43).
Uttarāpatha (उत्तरापथ).—(c)—the country, north of the Vindhyas; had Kārūṣas as kings;1 in charge of 50 sons of Īkṣvāku beginning with Śakuni.2
- 1) Bhāgavata-purāṇa IX. 2. 16; Brahmāṇḍa-purāṇa III. 63. 10; Vāyu-purāṇa 88. 10.
- 2) Viṣṇu-purāṇa IV. 2. 13; Brahmāṇḍa-purāṇa III. 63. 90; Vāyu-purāṇa 88. 9.
The Purana (पुराण, purāṇas) refers to Sanskrit literature preserving ancient India’s vast cultural history, including historical legends, religious ceremonies, various arts and sciences. The eighteen mahapuranas total over 400,000 shlokas (metrical couplets) and date to at least several centuries BCE.
Kavya (poetry)
Uttarāpatha (उत्तरापथ) is the name a locality mentioned in Rājaśekhara’s 10th-century Kāvyamīmāṃsā.—The region to the north of Pṛthudaka (or Pehoa, in the Karnal district of Punjab on the river Sarasvatī) is called by the name Uttarapatha. Prthudaka is fourteen miles to the west of Thaneśvara.
Kavya (काव्य, kavya) refers to Sanskrit poetry, a popular ancient Indian tradition of literature. There have been many Sanskrit poets over the ages, hailing from ancient India and beyond. This topic includes mahakavya, or ‘epic poetry’ and natya, or ‘dramatic poetry’.
In Buddhism
Theravada (major branch of Buddhism)
The northern division of Jambudipa. Its boundaries are nowhere explicitly stated in Pali literature. It has been suggested (See Law, Early Geog. of Bsm., pp.48ff) that Uttarapatha was originally the name of a great trade route, the northern high road which extended from Savatthi to Takkasila in Gandhara, and that it lent its name - as did the Dakkhinapatha - to the region through which it passed. If this be so, the name would include practically the whole of Northern India, from Anga in the east to Gandhara in the north west, and from the Himalaya in the north to the Vindhya in the south. According to the brahmanical tradition, as recorded in the Kavyamimamsa (p.93), the Uttarapatha is to the west of Prithudaka (Pehoa, about fourteen miles west of Thaneswar).
The chief divisions included in this territory are mentioned in the Pali literature as Kasmira Gandhara and Kamboja. This region was famous from very early times for its horses and horse dealers (See, e.g., Vin.iii.6; Sp.i.175), and horses were brought down for sale from there to such cities as Benares (J.ii.287).
In Uttarapatha was Kamsabhoga, where, in the city of Asitanjana, King Mahakamsa reigned (J.iv.79). The Divyavadana (p.470) mentions another city, Utpalavati.
According to the Mahavastu (iii.303), Ukkala, the residence of Tapassu and Bhalluka, was in Uttarapatha, as well as Takkasila, the famous university (Mtu.ii.166).
There was regular trade between Savatthi and Uttarapatha (PvA.100).
Anganika Bharadvaja had friends in Uttarapatha (ThagA.i.339).
Theravāda is a major branch of Buddhism having the the Pali canon (tipitaka) as their canonical literature, which includes the vinaya-pitaka (monastic rules), the sutta-pitaka (Buddhist sermons) and the abhidhamma-pitaka (philosophy and psychology).
India history and geography
Uttarāpatha refers to “northern India”: a district of ancient India comprising the Punjab proper including Kashmīr and the adjoining hill states; as recorded in the Pāli Buddhist texts (detailing the geography of ancient India as it was known in to Early Buddhism).—According to Chinese Buddhist writers, Northern India (Uttarāpatha) comprised the Punjab proper including Kashmīr and the adjoining hill states with the whole of eastern Afganisthan beyond the Indus, and the present Cis-satlej States to the west of the Saraswatī river.
Uttarāpatha too may supposed to have been originally a great trade route – the northern high road, so to speak, which extended from Sāvatthī to Takkasīlā in Gāndhāra, and have lent, precisely like the southern high road, its name to the region through which it passed, i.e., the region covering, broadly speaking, the north-western part of the United Provinces, and the whole of the Punjab and the North-western Frontier Provinces. But this definition of Uttarāpatha is nowhere explicitly stated in Pāli literature. It is, therefore, not at all improbable that Uttarāpatha in Pāli literature might have also signified the same region, i.e., the entire northern India from Aṅga in the east to Gandhāra in the north-west and from the Himalayas in the north to the Vindhyās in the south as under stood by its later and wider sense (i.e., the whole of Āryāvarta), e.g., in the Cālukya inscriptions of the 7th and 8th centuries A.D.
Of the sixteen Mahājanapadas that existed in India during the days of the Buddha, Gandhāra (Kashmīr and Takshasīlā) and Kamboja (north-west India near Gandhāra) are included in Uttarāpatha (Northern India).
The history of India traces the identification of countries, villages, towns and other regions of India, as well as mythology, zoology, royal dynasties, rulers, tribes, local festivities and traditions and regional languages. Ancient India enjoyed religious freedom and encourages the path of Dharma, a concept common to Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism.
Languages of India and abroad
Sanskrit dictionary
Uttarapatha (उत्तरपथ).—the northern way, way leading to the north; the northern country; P.V.1 77. उत्तरपथेनाहृतं च (uttarapathenāhṛtaṃ ca).
Derivable forms: uttarapathaḥ (उत्तरपथः).
Uttarapatha is a Sanskrit compound consisting of the terms uttara and patha (पथ).
Uttarāpatha (उत्तरापथ).—m.
(-thaḥ) The north, a northern road or direction. E. uttara and pathin a road, the final of uttara lengthened.
Uttarāpatha (उत्तरापथ).—[masculine] the northern path, the north.
1) Uttarapatha (उत्तरपथ):—[=uttara-patha] [from uttara > ut-tama] m. the northern way, the way leading to the north
2) [v.s. ...] the northern country, [Pāṇini 5-1, 27, etc.]
3) Uttarāpatha (उत्तरापथ):—[=uttarā-patha] [from uttara > ut-tama] m. the northern road or direction, the northern country, north, [Pañcatantra; Hitopadeśa; Kathāsaritsāgara etc.]
Uttarāpatha (उत्तरापथ):—[uttarā-patha] (thaḥ) 1. m. The north.
Uttarapatha (उत्तरपथ):—(u + pa) m. der nördliche Weg, der Weg nach Norden [Pāṇini’s acht Bücher 5, 1, 77.] — Vgl. uttarāpatha .
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Uttarāpatha (उत्तरापथ):—(u + pa) n. (der Weg nach Norden) Nordland [Pañcatantra 259, 22.] [Hitopadeśa 58, 1, v. l.] [Kathāsaritsāgara 13, 93.] [Rājataraṅgiṇī 5, 153. 214.] — Vgl. dakṣiṇāpatha .
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Uttarapatha (उत्तरपथ):—[Oxforder Handschriften 340,a,17.]
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Uttarāpatha (उत्तरापथ):—[Varāhamihira’s Bṛhajjātaka S.9,41.] [Kathāsaritsāgara 72,162.] [Oxforder Handschriften 338,b,29.] [Scholiast] zu [Kātyāyana’s Śrautasūtrāṇi 19,2,21.]
Uttarapatha (उत्तरपथ):—m. Nordland.
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Uttarāpatha (उत्तरापथ):—m. Nordland.
Sanskrit, also spelled संस्कृतम् (saṃskṛtam), is an ancient language of India commonly seen as the grandmother of the Indo-European language family (even English!). Closely allied with Prakrit and Pali, Sanskrit is more exhaustive in both grammar and terms and has the most extensive collection of literature in the world, greatly surpassing its sister-languages Greek and Latin.
Kannada-English dictionary
Uttarāpatha (ಉತ್ತರಾಪಥ):—
1) [noun] the country to the north of Vindhya mountains (in the central India); Northern India.
2) [noun] (rhet.) one of the styles in Saṃskṛita poetic composition (also called -ಗೌಡಿ [gaudi]).
Kannada is a Dravidian language (as opposed to the Indo-European language family) mainly spoken in the southwestern region of India.
Pali-English dictionary
1) uttarapatha (ဥတ္တရပထ) [(pu) (ပု)]—
[uttara+patha]
[ဥတ္တရ+ပထ]
2) uttarāpatha (ဥတ္တရာပထ) [(pu) (ပု)]—
[uttarā+patha]
[ဥတ္တရာ+ပထ]
[Pali to Burmese]
1) uttarapatha—
(Burmese text): ဥတ္တရပထတိုင်းပြည်။ ဥတ္တရာပထ-လည်းကြည့်။
(Auto-Translation): Uttara Province. Also look at Uttara.
2) uttarāpatha—
(Burmese text): ဥတ္တရာပထမည်သော-ဇနပုဒ်-တိုင်းပြည်-နယ်ပယ်။ မူရင်းကြည့်ပါ။
(Auto-Translation): The first region of Uttara Pradesh - the land of Zana. Please see the original.
Pali is the language of the Tipiṭaka, which is the sacred canon of Theravāda Buddhism and contains much of the Buddha’s speech. Closeley related to Sanskrit, both languages are used interchangeably between religions.
See also (Relevant definitions)
Partial matches (+0): Uttara, Pata, Patta.
Starts with (+0): Uttarapathajanapada, Uttarapathaka, Uttarapathavasika.
Full-text (+57): Uttarapathaka, Auttarapathika, Uttarapathajanapada, Uttarapathavasika, Asitanjana, Tangana, Kamboja, Mahajanapada, Bei tian zhu, Uttarapathika, Maha Kamsa, Kamsabhoga, Udakpatha, Uttarapati, Candarabhaga, Uttarapantha, Northern India, Asitanjananagara, Uttarahaka, Madhupura.
Relevant text
Search found 47 books and stories containing Uttarapatha, Uttara-patha, Uttarā-patha, Uttarāpatha; (plurals include: Uttarapathas, pathas, Uttarāpathas). You can also click to the full overview containing English textual excerpts. Below are direct links for the most relevant articles:
Kavyamimamsa of Rajasekhara (Study) (by Debabrata Barai)
Part 8.7 - The region of Uttarāpatha (northern part) < [Chapter 5 - Analyasis and Interpretations of the Kāvyamīmāṃsā]
Appendix 2 - Identification of Geographical names mentioned in the Kāvyamīmāṃsā
Part 8.3 - Rājaśekhara’s concepts of Bhāratavarṣa (undivided india) < [Chapter 5 - Analyasis and Interpretations of the Kāvyamīmāṃsā]
Old Brahmi Inscriptions (by B. M. Barua)
Part 11 - The geographical allusions of the Cave Inscriptions < [Book 2 - Notes]
Index to Notes < [Book 2 - Notes]
Part 8 - The contents of the Cave Inscriptions < [Book 2 - Notes]
Harshacharita (socio-cultural Study) (by Mrs. Nandita Sarmah)
Part 9.5: Dress and Other Amenities of a Soldier < [Chapter 5 - Political Aspects]
Jataka tales [English], Volume 1-6 (by Robert Chalmers)
Jataka 5: Taṇḍulanāli-jātaka < [Book I - Ekanipāta]
Jataka 454: Ghata-jātaka < [Volume 4]
Studies in Orissan History, Archaeology and Archives (by Padmasri Paramananda Acharya)
Part 45 - A note on Laksha in Rajasekhara’s Kavyamimamsa < [Section D - Literary History]
Bhasa’s dramas (socio-cultural study) (by Dutta Pallabi)
Part 6.1 - Countries and States (mentioned by Bhāsa) < [Chapter 2 - The Socio-Cultural Aspect]