&c., from the Mahendra; and the Rishikulyá, Kumárí,* and others, from the Suktimat mountains. Of such as these, and of minor rivers, there is an infinite number; and many nations inhabit the countries on their borders.1+

1

This is a very meagre list, compared with those given in other Puránas. That of the Váyu is translated by Colonel Wilford, As. Res., Vol. VIII.; and much curious illustration of many of the places, by the same writer, occurs As. Res., Vol. XIV. The lists of the Mahábhárata, Bhagavata, and Padma are given without any arrangement: those of the Váyu, Matsya, Márkańdeya, and Kúrma are classed as in the text. Their lists are too long for insertion in this place. Of the rivers named in the text, most are capable of verification. The Satadrú, 'the hundred-channelled', -the Zaradrust of Ptolemy, Hesidrus of Pliny-is the Sutlej. The Chandrabhágá, Sandabalis, § or Acesines, is the Chinab. The Vedasmŕiti, ¶ in the Váyu and Kúrma, is classed with the Vetravati or Betwa, the Charmanwati or Chambal, and Siprá, and Párá, rivers of Malwa, and may be the same with the Beos of the maps. The Narmadá (or Nerbudda), the Namadus of Ptolemy, is well known. According to the Váyu, it rises, not in the Vindhya, but in the Řiksha mountains; taking its origin,

* All my MSS. read Kumárá.

In none of the MSS. accessible to me is there anything to which the latter clause of this sentence answers.

Zadadrus is another reading.

§ Ptolemy has Zavdaßúla, which has been surmised to be a clerical error for Σανδαβάγα.

|| M. Vivien de Saint-Martin is of opinion that the 'Azɛoívns of Ptolemy represents the Asikni. This—a Vaidik name—and Chandrabhágá, he supposes, were, probably, already in the days of Alexander the Great, applied to the same stream. Étude sur la Géographie Grecque et Latine de l'Inde, pp. 128, 129, 216, 407.

In a Pauráúik passage quoted in the Nitimayúkha and Púrtakamalákara, the Vedasmŕiti is named between the Mahanada and the Vedasini.

The principal nations of Bhárata are the Kurus and Pánchálas, in the middle districts; the people of Kámarúpa, in the east; the Pundras,* Kalingas, Magadhas, (and southern nations) are in the south; in the extreme

in fact, in Gondwana. The Surasᆠis uncertain. The Tápí is the Taptee, rising also in Gondwana: the other two are not identified. The Godávarí‡ preserves its name: in the other two we have the Beemah and the Krishná. For Kritamálá the Kúrma reads Ritumálá: but neither is verified. The Támraparní is in Tinivelly, and rises at the southern extremity of the Western Ghats. The Rishikulyȧ that rises in the Mahendra mountain is the Rasikulia or Rasikoila, which flows into the sea near Ganjam. The Trisámá is undetermined. The text assigns another Rishikulyá to the Suktimat mountains; but, in all the other authorities, the word is Rishika. The Kumárí might suggest some connexion with Cape Comorin, but that the Malaya mountains seem to extend to the extreme south. A Rishikulyá river is mentioned (Vana Parvan, v. 3026) as a Tírtha, in the Mahábhárata, in connexion, apparently, with the hermitage of Vasishtha, which, in another passage (v. 4096), is said to be on mount Arbuda or Ábú. In that case, and if the reading of the text be admitted for the name of the river, the Śuktimat range would be the mountains of Gujerat. But this is doubtful. See Book IV., Chapter XII., note. In the Mahábhárata, Ádi Parvan, the Śuktimati§ river is said to flow by the capital of Chedi.

* Variants: Udras and Rudras.

The Nitimanjari and Púrtakamalákara, in a passage which they cite, mention it between the Kunti and the Palȧśiní.

In the Revámáhatmya, Chapter III., it is distinguished by the epithet of "the southern Ganges":

गोदावरीति विख्याता गंगा सा दक्षिणा स्मृता ।

§ Colonel Wilford would identify this river with the Arbis, or Háb, on the west coast of India. See Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1851, pp. 250 and 254.

west are the Saurashtras, Šúras, Ábhíras,* Arbudas; the Kárúshas† and Málavas, dwelling along the Páripátra mountains; the Sauvíras, the Saindhavas, the Húnas, the Śálwas, the people of Śákala, the Madras,‡ the Rámas, & the Ambashthas, and the Párasíkas, and. others. These nations drink of the water of the rivers

1

'The list of nations is as scanty as that of the rivers. It is, however, omitted altogether in the Bhagavata. The Padma has a long catalogue, but without arrangement: so has the Mahábhárata. The lists of the Vayu, Matsya, and Márkańdeya class the nations as central, northern, eastern, southern, and western. The names are much the same in all, and are given in the eighth volume of the As. Res., from the Brahmánda, or (for it is the same account) the Váyu. The Márkańdeya has a second classification, and, comparing Bhárata-varsha to a tortoise, with its head to the east, enumerates the countries in the head, tail, flanks, and feet, of the animal. It will be sufficient, here, to attempt an identification of the names in the text: but some further illustration is offered at the end of the chapter. The Kurus are the people of Kurukshetra or the upper part of the Doab, about

* The original, शूराभीरा:, was read, by Professor Wilson, शूरा :, whence his "Súras, Bhiras", which I have ventured to alter. The Súras are associated with the Abhiras in the Bhagavata-purána, XII., 1, 36:

सौराष्ट्रावन्याभीराश्च शूरा अर्बुदमालवाः ।

In the Mahabharata, Śálya-parvan, 2119, mention is made of the Súdras and Ábhiras in conjunction.

In the Harivamsa, 12,837,-where the Calcutta edition has "Madras and Ábhiras", -M. Langlois reads

TT:,

:, i. e., “Śuras

and Abhiras", whom he has welded into "Surabhiras". See his translation, Vol. II., p. 401.

For the Ábhíras-or, as they were anciently called, Abhiras

Goldstücker's Sanskrit Dictionary, p. 299.

† Málukas and Márukas are variants.

One MS. has Bhadras.

§ Variants: Romas and Vámas.

see

above enumerated, and inhabit their borders, happy and prosperous.

Delhi. The Pánchálas, it appears from the Mahábhárata, occupied the lower part of the Doab, extending across the Jumna to the Chambal. Kullúka Bhatta, in his commentary on Manu, II., 19, places them at Kanoj. Kámarúpa is the north-eastern part of Bengal, and western portion of Assam. Puńára is Bengal proper, with part of South Behar and the Jungle Mahals. Kalinga is the sea-coast west of the mouths of the Ganges, with the upper part of the Coromandel coast. Magadha is Behar. The Saurashtras are the people of Surat, the Syrastrene of Ptolemy. The Súras and Bhíras, in the same direction, may be the Suri and Phauni or Phruni of Strabo. The Arbudas must be the people about mount Ábú, or the natives of Mewar. The Kárúshas and Málavas are, of course, the people of Malwa. The Sauvíras and Saindhavas are usually conjoined as the Sindhu-Sauvíras, and must be the nations of Sindh and western Rájputáná. By the Húnas we are to understand the white Huns or Indo-Scythians,† who were established in the Punjab and along the Indus, at the commencement of our era; as we know from Arrian, Strabo, and Ptolemy, confirmed by recent discoveries of their coins. The Śálwas

*

The "Bhiras' have already been disposed of. See my first note in the last page. As to the reading Suri, Seri is thought to be preferable. See M. V. de Saint-Martin's Étude sur la Géog. Grecque, &c., pp. 422 and 423.

I am not prepared to deny that the ancient Hindus, when they spoke of the Húnas, intended the Huns. In the middle ages, however, it is certain that a race called Húna was understood, by the learned of India, to form a division of the Kshatriyas. See Mallinátha on the Raghuvamsa, IV., 68. We have, further, the attestation of inscriptions to the fact that, in medieval times, Kshatriyas married Húna wives. Venkata Adhwarin, in his Viswaguńádarśa, pretty evidently means the Portuguese, where he gives an estimate of the Húnas; and the pandits of the present day, as I know from having heard them, very often employ Húna as synonymous with Faringi, or Frank. See Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. VI., pp. 528 and 529: Journal of the As. Soc. of Bengal, 1862, pp. 3, 117, and 118.

In the Bhárata-varsha it is that the succession of four Yugas or ages, the Krita, the Tretá, the Dwápara,

(or, as also read, Śályas) are placed, by the Váyu and Matsya, amongst the central nations, and seem to have occupied part of Rájasthan; a Śálwa Rájá being elsewhere described as engaging in hostilities with the people of Dwáraká in Gujerat. Šákala, as I have elsewhere noticed, is a city in the Punjab (As. Res., Vol. XV., p. 108), the Sagala of Ptolemy (Ibid., p. 107). The Mahábhárata makes it the capital of the Madras, the Mardi of the ancients: but they are separately named, in the text, and were situated something more to the south-east. The Rámas and Ambashthas* are not named in the other Puránas: but the

Professor Wilson himself, further on in this work, where mention is again made of the Húnas, adverting to the Hun or Turk tribes that figure in Chinese history, suggests, inasmuch as those tribes did not appear until several centuries after the beginning of the Christian era, and inasmuch as the theatre of their recorded exploits is remote from India, that the coincidence of appellation may be merely accidental. See Book IV., Chapter XI., concluding note.

* Ambashtha is the name of a military people, and its country, situated in the middle of the Punjab (probably the 'Außάora of Ptolemy)". Goldstücker, whom I here quote, remarks as follows-Sanskrit Dictionary, p. 401-on the name by which this people is found to be called, and concludes that its older denomination was, probably, Ámbashťha: "In the Aitareya-brahmana, 8 is met with as the name of a king: and this word, alledged by the Kásiká,. would, according to Pánini, IV., 1, 171, come from; the latter designating a Kshatriya or military man of a country bearing the same name (comp. IV., 1, 168). Now, if the instance " which is given by the Kásiká, on Páńini, IV., 2, 69, were derived from 8, taddh, aff., its plural, meaning the people of the country so named, would be, according to Pánini, IV., 2, 81, and I., 2, 51. But Páńini himself, when teaching, VIII., 3, 97, that, as the latter part of certain compounds, becomes, gives, amongst others, as first part of such compounds, and; thus expressly denying that, in his opinion, is a derivative of : for, had he considered to be such, the alleging the word itself would have been superfluous; as the change of to, in such a derivative, would have been implied by that in its