The Dakshinapatha trade route was one of two great highways that have connected different parts of the sub-continent since the
Iron Age. The other highway was the
Uttarapatha or the great northern road that ran from Taxila in Pakistan, through the modern Punjab up to the western coast of Yamuna. Following the course of Yamuna it went southwards up to Mathura, from there it passed on to Ujjain in Malwa and to Broach on western coast. According to ''Land of the Seven Rivers: A Brief History of India's Geography'' by
Sanjeev Sanyal, the trajectory of the northern road (Uttarapatha) has remained roughly the same from pre-Mauryan times and is now known as
Grand Trunk Road or the old
NH2 (currently the
NH 19 along with parts of northern
NH 44 and eastern
NH 3). However, the southern road appears to have drifted since the ancient era. Rama's route into exile in the epic may have been an early version of the road, but by the time of Buddha it started at Varanasi and ran through Vidisha in central India, to Pratishthana (now
Paithan). It probably extended all the way to Chola, Chera and Pandya kingdoms of the far south. By the Mauryan period, there would have been a branch from
Ujjain to the ports of Gujarat which made Ujjain a major city by Gupta era. In the modern era, Dakshinapatha roughly coincides with the old NH-7 (currently the
NH 44 along with parts of southern
NH 34,
NH 30 and
NH 35), which runs much further east of the old road but still meets the northern road at
Varanasi. ==See also==