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EXTRACTS.

SECTION III.—On the Hills and Rivers of Hindustán and Súdán (sic), which according to Abú Ríhán extend twelve thousand parasangs. ⁠Philosophers and Geometricians have divided the land of Hind into nine unequal^[1] parts, giving to each part a separate name, as appears from the book called Bátankal.^[2] Its shape resembles the back of a crab on the surface of the water.^[3] The mountains and plains in these nine parts of India are extensive, and occur one after the other in successive order. The mountains appear to stand near each other, like the joints of the spine, and extend through the inhabited world from the east to the midst of the west, i.e., from the beginning of China through Tibet, and the country of the Turks, to Kábul, Badakhshán, Tukháristán, Bámián, Ghúr, Khurásán, Gílán, A′zarbáíján, Armenia, Rúm, to the country of the Franks and Galicia on the west. In their course they spread out widely from the deserts and inhabited places; of that part. Rivers flow at their base. One which comes from the south from India is very large and

1. [The different MSS. are strangely discordant as to the division of India. The original translation from the Indian MS. made the division to be “three equal parts,” and “three parts” are again mentioned at the beginning of the next section. The E. I. Library copy, in the first line of this section, says “three equal parts,” but in the following line it refers “to these nine parts;” at the beginning of the next section it again says; “three parts.” The British Museum copy says, in this place, “nine equal parts,” and in the next section it also says “nine parts.” The Arabic version is also consistent in always giving "nine" as the number, but it differs in declaring them to be “unequal.” Nine being the number most frequently used, and unequal being more probable than equal, I have used those words in the translation. Al Bírúní makes no mention of the division in the chapter translated by Reinaud, so that Rashídu-d Dín probably derived his knowledge of it from the translation of the book “Bátankal,” to which he refers. The inconsistencies have most probably arisen from a confusion of the original Sanskrit authorities. Menu makes a threefold division of Upper India, “Brahmarsha, Brahmávartta and Madhyadesa,” and this last portion is accurately defined by Al Bírúní and Rashídu-d Dín. The ninefold division is that of the “nava-dwípas,” or nine portions, given in the Vishnu Purána, p. 175.]
2. [Bátajal or Bátanjal in the Arabic version. See a note upon this in the notice of Abú Ríhán, Vol. II.]
3. [The Persian versions have the following sentence here the application of which is not clear, but as a blank space is left in one MS. immediately after these words, they probably refer to the difficulty of representing the appearance in a picture]