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342
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
a fine city, defended by marshes which serve as a ditch, wherein crocodiles are kept, which, having a great avidity for human flesh, prevent all access to the city except by a bridge. And another city of theirs is much admired, A u to me la,* which, being seated on the coast at the confluence of five rivers, is a noble emporium of trade. The king is master of 1600 elephants, 150,000 foot, and 5000 cavalry. The poorer king of the Charms has but sixty elephants, and his force otherwise is insignificant. Next come the Pandæ, the only race in India ruled by women.† They say that Hercules having but one daughter, who was on that account all the more beloved, endowed her with a noble kingdom. Her descendants rule over 300 cities, and command an army of 150,000 foot and 500 elephants. Next, with 300 cities, the Syrieni, Derange, Posinge, Buzæ, Gogiarei, Umbræ, Ne
tain sacred to Jupiter, Mêros by name, in a cave on which the ancient Indians affirm Father Bacchus was nourished; while the name has given rise to the well-known fantastic story that Bacchus was born from the thigh of his fa
v. 1. Automula.
The Charma have been identified with the inhabitanta of Charmamandala, a district of the west mentioned in the Mahabharata and also in the Vishnu Purana under the form Charmakhanda. They are now represented by the Charmårs or Chamirs of Bundelkhand and the parts adjacent to the basin of the Ganges. The Panda, who were their next neighbours, must have occupied a considerable portion of the basin of the river Chambal, called in Sanskrit geography the Charmanvati. They were a branch of the famous race of Pându, which made for itself kingdoms in several different parts of India.
The names in this list lead us to the desert lying be tween the Indus and the Arávali range. Most of the tribes enumerated are mentioned in the lists of the clans given in the Rajput chronicles, and have been identified by M. de St.-Martin as follows:-The Syrieni are the Suriyanis, who under that name have at all times occupied the country near the Indus in the neighbourhood of Bakkar. Darange is the Latin transcription of the name of the great race of the Jhâdejas, a branch of the Rajputs which at the present day possesses Kachh. The Buza represent the Buddas, an ancient branch of the same Jhidejas (Tod, Annals and Antiq, of the Raj. vol. I. p. 86). The Gogiarei (other readings Gogarasi, Gogare) are the Kokaris, who are now settled on the banks of the Ghara or Lower Satlej. The Umbra are represented by the Umranis, and the Nerei perhaps by the Nharonis, who, though belonging to Baluchistan, had their ancestral seats in the regions to the east of the Indus. The Nubêteh, who figure in the old local traditions of Sindh, perhaps correspond to the No-. bundee, while the Coconda certainly are the Kokonadas mentioned in the Mahabharata among the people of the north-west. (See Lassen, Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenl. t. II. 1839, p. 45.) Buchanan mentions a tribe called Kakand as belonging to Gorakhpur.
§ There were two defiles, which went by the name of 'the Kaspian 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-Western Asia into the north-east provinces of Persia. According to Arrian (Anab. III. 20) the Kaspian Gates lay a few days' journey distant
[DECEMBER, 1877.
reæ, Brancosi, Nobundæ, Cocondæ, Nesei, Pedatrire, Solobrias æ, Olostræ, who adjoin the island Patale, from the furthest shore of which to the Caspian gates the distance is said to be 1925 miles.§
Then next to these towards the Indus come, in an order which is easy to follow, the Amatæ, Boling æ, Gallitalutæ, Dimuri, Megari, Ordabæ,|| Messe; after these the Uri and Sileni. Immediately beyond come deserts extending for 250 miles. These being passed, we come to the Organagæ, Abaortæ, Sibara, Suerte, and after these to deserts as extensive as the former. Then come the Sarophages, Sorge, Baraomatæ, and the Umbrittæ, who consist of twelve tribes, each possessing two cities, and the Aseni, who possess three cities. Their capital is Bucephala, built where Alexander's famous horse
ther. Beyond the mouth of the Indus are two islands, Chryse and Argyre, which yield such an abundant supply of metals that many writers allege their soils consist of gold and of silver.
from the Median town of Rhagai, now represented by the rains called Rha, found a mile or two to the south of Teheran. 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.
v. 1. Ardabae.
In the grammatical apophthegms of Panini, Bhaulingi is mentioned as a territory occupied by a branch of the great tribe of the Salvas (Lassen, Ind. Alt. I. p. 613, note, or 2nd ed. p. 760 n.), and from this indication M. de St.Martin has been led to place the Boling at the western declivity of the Aravali mountains, where Ptolemy also places his Bolinge. The Madrabhujingha of the Panjah (see Vishnu Pur. p. 187) were probably a branch of this tribe. The Gallitalute are identified by the same author with the Gahalata or Gehlots; the Dimuri with the Dumras, who, though belonging to the Gangetic valley, originally came from that of the Indus; the Megari with the Mokars of the Rajput chronicles, whose name is perhaps preserv ed in that of the Mebars of the lower part of Sindh, and also in that of the Meghåris of Eastern Baluchistan; the Messe with the Mazaris, a considerable tribe between Chikarpur and Mitankot on the western bank of the Indus; and the Uri with the Hauras of the same locality -the Hurairas who figure in the Rajput lists of thirty-six royal tribes. The Sulalas of the same tribes perhaps represent the Sileni, whom Pliny mentions along with the Uri.
vv. ll. Paragomate, Umbitres.-Baraomate Gumbriteque.
The tribes here enumerated must have occupied a tract of country lying above the confluence of the Indus with the stream of the combined rivers of the Panjab. They are obscure, and their names cannot with any certainty be identified if we except that of the Sibara, who are undoubtedly the Sauviras of the Mahabharata, and who, as their name is almost invariably combined with that of the Indus, must have dwelt not far from its banks. The Afghan tribe of the Afridis may perhaps represent the Abaorta, and the Sarabhán or Sarvanis, of the same stock, the Sarophages, The Umbrittee and the Aseni take us to
