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140
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
sign by which voyager's know they are approaching this bay is their seeing serpents floating about on the water, of extraordinary size and of a black colour, for those met with lower down and in the neighbourhood of Baragaza are of less size, and in colour green and golden.
41. To the gulf of Bara kê succeeds that of Barugaza and the mainland of Ariake, a district which forms the frontier of the kingdom of Mombaros and of all India. The
(40) The first place mentioned after the Indus is the Gulf of Eirinon, a name of which traces remain in the modern appellation the Rana of Kachh. This is no longer covered with water except during the monsoon, when it is flooded by sea water or by rains and inundated rivers. At other seasons it is not even a marsh, for its bed is hard, dry and sandy; a mere saline waste almost entirely devoid of herbage, and frequented but by one quadruped-the wild ass. Burnes conjectured that its desiccation resulted from an upheaval of the earth caused by one of those earthquakes which are so common in that part of India. The Ran is connected with the Gulf of Kachh, which our author calls the Gulf of Barakê. His account of it is far from clear. Perhaps, as Müller suggests, he comprehended under Eirinon the interior portion of the Gulf of Kachh, limiting the Gulf of Bara kê to the exterior portion or entrance to it. This gulf is called that of Kanthi by Ptolemy, who mentions Barakê only as an island, [and the south coast of Kachh is still known by the name of Kantha]. The islands of the Periplús extend westward from the neighbourhood of Navanagar to the very entrance of the Gulf.
(41) To Bara kê succeeds the Gulf of Barugaza (Gulf of Khambhât) and the sea-board of the region called Aria kê. The reading of the MS. here ἡ πρὸς 'Αραβικῆς χώρας is considered corrupt. Müller substitutes ἡ ἤπειρος τῆς ̓Αριακῆς χώρας, though Mannert and others prefer Λαρικῆς xápas, relying on Ptolemy, who places Aria kê to the south of Larikê, and says that Larikê comprehends the peninsula (of Gujarat) Barugaza and the parts adjacent. As Ariake was however previously mentioned in the Periplús (sec. 14) in connexion with Barugaza, and is afterwards mentioned (sec. 54) as trading with Muziris, it must no doubt have been mentioned by the author in its proper place, which is here. [Bhagvanlal Indraji Pandit has shewn reasons however for correcting the readings into Aßaparikη, the Prakrit form of A par&ntikâ, an old name of the western sea board of India.-Ind. Ant. vol. VII., pp. 259,
[MAY, 1879.
interior part of it which borders on Skythia is called Abêria, and its sea-board Sura strênê. It is a region which produces abundantly corn and rice and the oil of sesamum, butter, muslins and the coarser fabrics which are manufactured from Indian cotton. It has also numerous herds of cattle. The natives are men of large stature and coloured black. The metropolis of the district is Minnagar, from which cotton cloth is exported in great quantity to
263.] Regarding the name Larikê, Yule has the following note (Travels of M. Polo vol. II. p. 353):-"L&r-D es a, the country of Lar," properly Lât-desa, was an early name for the territory of Gujrat and the northern Konkan, embracing Saimur (the modern Chaul as I believe) Thana, and Bharoch. It appears in Ptolemy in the form Larikê. The sea to the west of that coast was in the early Muhammadan times called the sea of Lår, and the language spoken on its shores is called by Mas'udi Lâri. Abulfeda's authority Ibn Said, speaks of Lâr and Gujarât as identical."
Ariake (Aparântika), our author informs us, was the beginning or frontier of India. That part of the interior of Ariakê which bordered on Skuthia was called Aberia or Abiria (in the MS. erroneously Ibêria). The corresponding Indian word is Abhira, which designated the district near the mouths of the river. Having been even in very early times a great seat of commerce, some (as Lassen) have been led to think from a certain similarity of the names that this was the Ophir of scripture, a view opposed by Ritter. Abiria is mentioned by Ptolemy, who took it to be not a part of India but of Indoskuthis. The sea-board of Ariake was called Suras trênê, and is mentioned by Ptolemy, who says (VII. i. 55) it was the region about the mouths of the Indus and the Gulf of Kanthi. It answers to the Sanskrit Surâ shtra. Its capital was Minnagar,-a city which, as its name shows, had once belonged to the Min or Skuthians. It was different of course from the Minnagar already mentioned as the capital of IndoSkuthia. It was situated to the south of O zê nê (Ujjayini, or Ujjain), and on the road which led from that city to the River Narmada, probably near where Indôr now stands. It must have been the capital only for a short time, as Ptolemy informs us (II. i. 63) that Ozênê was in his time the capital of Tias hanes [probably the Chashtana of Coins and the Cave Temple inscriptions]. From both places a great variety of merchandise was sent down the Narmada to Barugaza.
The next place our author mentions is a promontory called Papik & projecting into the Gulf
