Indian Antiquary Vol 06

SR No.: 032498
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 458
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 21 MB

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THE INDIKA OF MEGASTHENES.
DECEMBER, 1877.]
mula, where there is the greatest emporium of trade in India, 750 miles; to the town in the island of Pata la mentioned above, 620 miles.
The hill-tribes between the Indus and the Iomanes are the Cesi; the Cetriboni, who live in the woods; then the Megallæ, whose king is master of five hundred elephants. and an army of horse and foot of unknown strength; the Chrysei, the Parasang æ, and the A s a n g æ,† where tigers abound, noted for their ferocity. The force under arms cousists of 30,000 foot, 300 elephants, and 800 horse. These are shut in by the Indus, and are surrounded by a circle of mountains and deserts over a space of 625 miles. Below the deserts are the Dari, the Suræ, then deserts again for 187 miles, these deserts encircling the fertile
The Panda an nation is governed by females, and their first queen is said to have
This cape is a projecting point of the island of Perimula or Perimuda, now called the island of Salsette, near Bombay.
v. L. Asmagi. The Asange, as placed doubtfully by Lassen about Jodhpur.-ED.
I DCXXV. v. 1. DCXXXV. Pliny, having given a general account of the basins of the Indus and the Ganges, proceeds to enumerate here the tribes which peopled the north of India. The names are obscure, bat Lassen has identified one or two of them, and de Saint-Martin a considerable number more. The tribes first mentioned in the list occupied the country extending from the Jamunå to the western coast about the mouth of the Narmada. The Cesi probably answer to the Khosas or Khasyas, a great tribe which from time immemorial has led a wandering life between Gujarat, the lower Indus, and the Jamunâ. The name of the Cetriboni would seem to be a transcript of Kêtrivani (for Kshatrivanêya). They may therefore have been a branch of the Kshatri (Khâtri), one of the impure tribes of the list of Manu (1. x. 12). The Megalls must be identified with the Mavelas of. Sanskrit books, a great tribe described as settled to the west of the Jamuna. The Chrysei probably correspond to the Karoncha of the Puranic lists (Vishnu Pur. pp. 177, 186, note 13, and 351, &c.). The locality occupied by these and the two tribes mentioned after them must have lain to the north of the Ran, between the lower Indus and the chain of the Aravali mountains.
§ CLXXXVII-v. 1. CLXXXVIII.
The Dhârs inhabit still the banks of the lower Ghara and the parts contiguous to the valley of the Indus. Hiwen Theang mentions, however, a land of Dara at the lower end of the gulf of Kachh, in a position which quite accords with that which Pliny assigns to them. The Sure, Sansk. Súra, have their name preserved in "Saur," which designates a tribe settled along the Lower Indus-the modern representatives of the Saurabbira of the Harivans. They are placed with doubt by Lassen on the Lont about Sindri, but Yule places the Bolinge-Sanskrit, Bhaulingasthere.-ED.
Moruni, &c.-v. 1. Morantes, Masus Pagunge, Lalii. These tribes must have been located in Kachh, a mountainous tongue of land between the gulf of that name and the Ran, where, and where only, in this region of India, a range of mountains is to be found running along the coast. The name of the Maltecore has attracted particular attention because of its resemblance to the name of the Martikhora (i. e. man-eater), a fabulous animal mentioned by Ktésias (Ctesice Indica, VII.) as found in India and subsisting upon human flesh. The Maltecore were consequently supposed to have been a race of canni
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tracts just as the 'sea encircles islands. Below these deserts we find the Maltecoræ, Singh, Maroha, Rarunge, Moruni. These inhabit the hills which in an unbroken chain run parallel to the shores of the ocean. They are free and have no kings, and occupy the mountain heights, whereon they have built many cities.** Next follow the Nareæ, enclosed by the loftiest of Indian mountains, Capitalia.t The inhabitants on the other side of this mountain work extensive mines of gold and silver. Next are the Oraturæ, whose king has only ten elephants, though he has a very strong force of infantry. Next again are the Varetat æ, § subject to a king, who keep no elephants, but trust entirely to their horse and foot. Then the O domborse; the Salabastra ; the Horatæ, ¶ who have
been the daughter of Hercules. The city Nys a is assigned to this region, as is also the moun
bals. The identification is, however, rejected by M. de St.-Martin. The Singha are represented at the present day by the Sânghis of Omarkot (called the Song by MacMurdo), descendants of an ancient Rajput tribe called the Singhårs. The Marohs are probably the Maruhas of the list of the Varaha Sanhita, which was later than Pliny's time by four and a half centuries. In the interval they were displaced, but the displacement of tribes was nothing unusual in those days. So the Rarunge may perhaps be the ancestors of the Ronghi or Rhanga now found on the banks of the Satlej and in the neighbourhood of Dihli.
† Capitalia is beyond doubt the sacred Arbuda, or Mount Abû, which, attaining an elevation of 6500 feet, rises far above any other summit of the Arâvali range. The name of the Nares recalls that of the Nair, which the Rajput chroniclers apply to the northern belt of the desert (Tod, Rajasthan, II. 211); so St.-Martin.
Iv. 1. Orate. The Oraturæ find their representatives in the Râthors, who played a great part in the history of India before the Musulman conquest, and who, though settled in the Gangetic provinces, regard Ajmir, at the eastern point of the Aravali, as their ancestral seat.
§ v. 1. Suaratarata. The Varetata cannot with certainty be identified.
The Odomboerse, with hardly a change in the form of their name, are mentioned in Sanskrit literature, for Panini (IV. 1, 173, quoted by Lassen, Ind. Alt. 1st ed. I. p. 614) speaks of the territory of Udumbari as that which was occupied by a tribe famous in the old legend, the Salva, who perhaps correspond to the Salabastre of Pliny, the addition which he has made to their name being explained by the Sanskrit word vastya, which means an abode or habitation. The word udumbara means the glomerous fig-tree. The district so named lay in Kachh. The Salabastre are located by Lassen between the mouth of the Sarasvati and Jodhpur, and the Horatæ at the head of the gulf of Khambhat; Automela he places at Khambhit. See Ind. Alterth. 2nd ed. I. 760. Yule has the Sandrabatis about Chandravati, in northern Gujarat, but these are placed by Lassen on the Bands about Tonk.-ED.
Horato is an incorrect transcription of Sorath, the vulgar form of the Sanskrit Saurashtra. The Horat were therefore the inhabitants of the region called in the Periplús, and in Ptolemy, Surastrênê-that is, Gujarat. Orrhoth (Oppoda) is used by Kosmas as the name of a city in the west of India, which has been conjectured to be Surat, but Yule thinks it rather some place on the Purbandar coast. The capital, Automela, cannot be identified, but de St-Martin conjectures it may have been the once famous Valabhl, which was situated in the peninsular part of Gujarat at about 34 miles' distance from the Gulf of Khambay.