Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/167

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

148 furthest shore of which to the Caspian gates the distance is said to he 1925 miles.* Then next to these towards the Indus come, in an order which is easy to follow, the A m a-> tse, Boling8&, Gallitalutse, Dimuri, Megari, Ordah 8B,t M e s » ; after these the U r i and S i 1 e n i.;]: Immediately beyond come Darangsd is the Latin transcription of the name of the great race of the Jh&dejds, a branch of the Bi^pnts which at the inresent day possesses Kachh. The Bozse represent the Bnddas, an ancient branch of the same Jhfidejfis (Tod, ArmaU omd Antiq, of the Rdj. vol. I. p. 86). The Gogiarei (other readings Gogarasi, GogarsB) are the Kokaris, who are now settled on the banks of the Ghara or Lower Satlej. The Umbrae are represented by the UmranSs, and the Nerei perhaps by the Nharonis, who, though belonging to Baluchist&nj had their ancestral seats in the regions to the east of the Indus. The Nub^teh, who figure in the old local traditions of Sindh, perhaps corresiwnd to the No- bund89> .while the Cocondsd certainly are the Kokonadas mentioned in the Malidhhdrata among the people of the north-west. (See Lassen, Zeitschrift fiir die Kwnde des Morgenl. t. II. 1839, p. 45.) Buchanan mentions a tribe called Kakamd as belonging to Grorakhpur. • There were two defiles, which went by the name of * the Easpian Gates.' One was in Albania, and was formed by the jutting out of a spur of the Kaukasos into the Kaspian Sea. The other, to which Pliny here refers, was a narrow pass leading from North-Westem Asia into the north-east provinces of Persia. According to Arrian {Anah. III. 20) the Kaspian Grates lay a few days' journey distant from the Median town of Ehagai, now represented by the ruins called Eha, found a mile or two to the south of Teherfin. This pass was one of the most important places in ancient geography, and from it many of the meridians were measured. Strabo, who frequently mentions it, states that its distance from the extreme promontories of India (Cape Comorin, &c.) was 14,000 stadia. t V. 1. ArdabsB. X Ib the grammatical apophthegms of Pfejini, Bhaulingi is mentioned as a territory occupied by a branch of the great tribe of the Sfilvas (Lassen, Ind. Alt. I. p. 613, note, • or 2nd ed. p. 760 n.), and from this indication M. de St.- Iklartin haa been led to place the Bolinge at the western Digitized by Google