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DECEMBER, 1877.]
THE INDIKA OF MEGASTHENES.
343
of that name was buried. Hillmen follow next, inhabiting the base of Caucasus, the Soleada, and the Sondræ; and if we cross to the other side of the Indus and follow its course downward we meet the Samarabriæ, Sam bruceni, Bisa mbritæ, & Osii, Antixeni, and the Taxillall with a famous city. Then succeeds a level tract of country known by the general name of Amanda, whereof the tribes are four in number-the Peucolaita, Arsagalitæ, Gereta, Asoi.
Many writers, however, do not give the river
Indus as the western boundary of India, but in clude within it four satrapies, -the Gedrosi, Arachotne, Arii, Parop a misa dæ,t making the river Cophes its furthest limit; though others prefer to consider all these as belonging to the Arii.
Many writers further include in India even the city Nysa and Mount Merus, sacred to Father Bacchus, whence the origin of the fable that he sprang from the thigh of Jupiter. They include also the Astacani, in whose country the vine grows abundantly, and the laurel, and boxwood,
the east of the river. The former are perhaps identical with the Ambasta of the historians of Alexander, and the Ambasthas of Sanskrit writings, who dwelt in the neighbourhood of the lower Akesinis.
1 Alexander, after the great battle on the banks of the Hyda-pes in which be defeated Pôros, founded two cities Bukephala or Bukephalia, so named in honour of his celebrated charger, and Nikaia, so named in honour of his vic. tory. Nikaia, it is known for certain, was built on the field of battle, and its position was therefore on the left side of the Hydasp?s-probably about where Mong now stands. The site of Bakephala it is not so easy to determine. According to Plutarch and Pliny it was near the Hydaspis, in the place where Bukephalos was buried, and if that be so it inust have been on the same side of the river as the sister city; whereas Straho and all the other ancient authorities place it on the opposite side. Strabo again places it at the point where Alexander crossed the river, whereas Arrian states that it was built on the site of his camp. General Cunningham fixes this at JalAlpar rather than at Jhelam, 30 miles higher up the river, the site which is favoured by Barnes and General Court and General Abbott. Jalalpur is about ten miles distant from Dillwar, where, according to Cunningham, the crossing of the river was most probably effected.
Whicer than at. General states there Alexa
the
1. Bisabritend the Sondra.cathe east of
• v. 1. Pencolitæ.
+ Gedrdeia comprehended probably nearly the same district which is now known by the name of Mekr&n. Alex ander marched through it on returning from his Indian expedition. Arachosis extended from the chain of mountains now called the Suleiman a far southward as Gedrðsia. Its capital, Archotos, was situated somewhere in the direction of Kandaher, the name of which, it has been thought, preserves that of Gandhra. According to Colonel Rawlinson the name of Arachosia is derived from Harakhwati (Sangkpit 8.rasvati), and is preserved in the Arabic Rakhaj. It is, as has already been noticed, the Hargavatas of the Bisutan inscription. Aria, denoted the country lying between Meshed and Herit; Arifos, of which it formed part, and of which it is sometimes used as the equivalent, was a wider district, which comprehended nearly the whole of ancient Persia. In the Persian part of the Bisutan inscription Arin appears as Hariva, in the Babylonian part as Arevan. Regarding Paropamigos and the Copbes see ante, vol. V. pp. 329 and 330.
Other readings of the name are Aspagani and Appagone. M. de St. Martin, whose work has so often been referred to, says " We have seen already that in an extract from old Hekataios preserved in Stephen of Byzantium the city of Kaspapyros is called Gandarie city, and that in Herodotos the same place is attributed to the Pakty, and we have added that in our opinion there is only an apparent contradiction, because the district of Paktyike and Gandara may very well be but one and the same country. It is not difficult, in fact, to recognize in the designation mentioned by Herodotos the indigenous name of the Afghin people, Pakhtu (in the plural Pakhtun), the name which the greater part of the tribes ore among themselves, and the only one they apply to their national dialect. We have here, then, as Lassen has noticed, historical proof of the presence of the Afgh Ans in their actual fatherland five centuries at least before the Christian era. Now, as the seat of the Afghan or Pakhtu nationality is chiefly in the basin of the Kophes, to the west of the Iuds, which forms its eastern boundary. this further confirms what we have already seen, that it is to the west of the great river we must seek for the site of the city of Kaspapyros or Kasyapapura, and consequently of the Gandariè of Hekataios. The employment of two different names to designate the very same country is easily explained by this double fact, that one of the names was the Indian designation of the land, whilst the other was the indigenous name applied to it by its inhabitants. There was yet another name, of Sanskrit origin, used as a territorial appellation of Gandhira—that of Asvaks. This word. derived from a sua, & horse, signified merely the cavaliers : it was leas an ethnic, in the rigorous acceptation of the word, than a general appellation applied by the Indians of the PanjAb to the tribes of the region of the Kophês, renowned from antiquity for the excellence of its horses. In the popular dialects the Sanskrit word took the usual form Assaka, which reappears scarcely modified in Assakani (Arcakavo) or AssakAnil'Ao gaknvoi) in the Greek historians of the expedition of Alexander and subsequent writers. It is impossible not to recognize bere the name of Avgban or AfgbAns... which is very evidently nothing else than a contracted form of Assakin... Neither the Gandariè of Hekataios nor the Paktyi of Herodotos are known to them [Arrian and other Greek and Latin writers of the history
The Soleada and the Sondra cannut be identified, and of the tribes which were seated to the east of the Indus only the Taxilla are known. Their capital was the famous Tarila, which was visited by Alexander the Great. "The position of this city," says Cuuningbam. " has hitherto remained unknown, partly owing to the erroneous distance recorded by Pliny, and partly to the want of information regard ng the vaat ruins which still exist in the vicinity of Sh&h-dberi. All the copies of Pliny agree in stating that Tuzila was only 60 Roman, or 55 English, miles from Peuco. laitis or Hashtnagar, which would fix its site somewhere on the Haro river to the west of Hasan Abdal, or just two days' march from the Indus. But the itineraries of the Chinese pilgrims agree in placing it at three days' journey to the east of the Indus, or in the immediate neighbourhood of KAla-ke-Serdi. He therefore fixes its sits near Shah-dheri (which is & mile to the north-east of that Sarai), in the extensive ruins of a fortified city abounding with stapas, monasteries, and temples. From this place to Hashtnagar the distance is 74 miles Englia!, or 19 iu excess of Pliny's estimate. Taxila representa the Sanskrit Taksbasila, of which the Pali form is khasila, whence the Greek form was taken. The word means either cut rock' or 'severed head.'-Anc. Geog. of Ind. pp. 104-121.
As the name Amanda is entirely unknown, M. de St.Martin proposes without hesitation the correction Gandhára, on the ground tht the territory assigned to the Amanda corresponds exactly to Gandhára, of which the tarritory occupied by the Peuoolitee (Peakelagtis), as we know from other writers, formed . part. The Geretæ are beyond doubt no others than the Gouræi of Arrian; and the Asoi may perhaps be ide tical with the Aspasii, or, as Strabo gives the name, Hipparii or Pasii.. The Arsagalita are only mentioned by Pliny. Two tribes settled in the same locality are perhaps indicated by the name--the Aras, men tioned by Ptolemy, answering to the Sanskrit Urahs; and the Ghilit or Ghilghit, the Gehalata of Sanskrit, formerly mentioned.
Gandare amigoate the
fact that on hilst the other
