Dakshinapatha

1 · POSITION

Dakshinapatha, the southern road, was the great highway from the Gangetic plain to the Deccan — and the name of the Deccan itself in ancient texts. In the time of the Buddha it began at Varanasi and ran by Vidisha in central India to Pratishthana, the modern Paithan, and probably on to the kingdoms of the far south. It is the southern half of a pair; Uttarapatha, the northern road, met it at Varanasi. [1]

2 · AN IRON AGE ROAD

The route has been used since the Iron Age. Later Vedic texts count Dakshinapatha as one of the three divisions of the subcontinent; Panini knew the kingdom of Asmaka in connection with it, and Rudradaman’s inscription at Junagadh names it in AD 150. A branch later ran from Ujjain to the ports of Gujarat. [1]

3 · THE TRADERS’ ROAD

The Arthashastra traces it from Pataliputra and Kaushambi by Vidisha and Ujjain to Pratishthana, with feeder roads linking Pratishthana to the coast at Arikamedu. Its traders had a presiding goddess of their own, Manimekalai, as the northern road’s had Manibhadra. [2]

4 · A ROAD THAT MOVED

Unlike the northern road, whose line held for two thousand years, the southern road drifted over time. In the modern era its course is roughly that of the old National Highway 7. [1]

5 · ⚑ CANDOUR

⚑ No lodging, sarai or rest house on the southern road is named by the sources read; the register files the road for the movement it carried, and the hospitality on it is not described from evidence here. [1–2]