ABSTRACT
The earliest known occurrence of the term putabhedana is found in the Mahapariniwanasuttanta of the Vinayapitaka, one of the most important canonical texts of the Buddhists assignable to pre-Maurya times. This chapter proposes to take a close look at a particular type of trade centre, known as putabhedana in early India. The panyaputabhedana should ideally be approachable both by overland (amsapatha) and water (varipatha) routes. This has some obvious correspondence to the account of Pataligama mentioned earlier. But Kautilya’s panyaputabhedana is marked by greater complexities than its counterpart at Pataligama. Historians of early Indian urbanism are therefore not always impressed by such stereotypical and hyperbolic descriptions. The text in this ease nevertheless offers us some ideas about the perceptions of early Indians of a flourishing commercial centre in an urbane setting. The combination of the socioeconomic and political factors probably resulted in the transformation of at least some of the putabhedanas or their equivalents into urban centres of early India.
