valmikiramayan.net Prose Commentary

Desiraju Hanumanta Rao's prose rendering with embedded explanatory notes

The horses are named as coming from Kamboja, Bahlika, and Vanayu, along with 'river-born' horses from the historic Seven Rivers of the Indus Valley. The source is careful to note these place-names should not be mapped onto present-day Indian provinces -- it proposes instead that they refer to a much wider cultural belt stretching from the Himalayas toward the Mediterranean, predating later divisions between 'east' and 'west,' and speculates that Kamboja and Bahlika may correspond to regions nearer Mesopotamia or Persia, with Vanayu possibly corresponding to Greek or Roman territory -- offering this explicitly as informed speculation rather than settled fact, since (as the source puts it) epics cannot be dated by carbon testing.