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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1884.
Sources of the River Bi
by which it enters the sea, and in the upper part daspês ........................ 127° 30' 36° 40' of its course it would seem to be scarcely less Sources of the River Sandabal 129° 36° capricious. Thus while at the time of the MakeSources of the River Adris
donian invasion it bifurcated above Aror, the or Rouadis.....................130° 370 capital of the Sogdi, to run for about the distance Sources of the River Bidasi.. 131° 350 30 of 2 degrees in two beds which enclosed between
Regarding the origin and meaning of the name them the large island called by Pliny (lib. VI, C.IX, Indus, says Mar Müller(India, what it can teach us): 23) Prasiake, the Prârjuna of the inscription on the "In the Vedas we have a number of names of the Allahabad column, it now runs at that part in a rivers of India as they were known to one single single stream, having forsaken the eastern bed, poet, say about 1000 B.C. We then hear nothing and left thereby the once flourishing country of India till we come to the days of Alexander, through which it flowed a complete desert. and when we look at the names of the Indian In his description of the Indus, Ptolemy has rivers represented by Alexander's companions in fallen into error on some important points. In India, we recognize without much difficulty nearly the first place, he represents it as rising among all of the old Vedic names. In this respect the the mountains of the country of the Daradrae to names of rivers have a great advantage over the
the east of the Paropanisos, and as flowing from its names of towns in India. I do not wonder so
sources in a southward direction. Ita true birth. much at the names of the Indus and the Ganges
place is, however, in a much more southern latitude, being the same. The Indus was known to early viz., in Tibet, near the sources of the Satlaj, on traders, whether by sea or land. Skylax sailed the north side of Mount Kailasa, famous in Indian from the country of the Paktys, i.e. the Pushtus, mythology as the dwelling-place of Kuvêra and as the Afghans still call themselves, down to the as the paradise of Siva, and its initial direction is mouth of the Indus. That was under Darius Hy. towards the north-west, till it approaches the fron. staspês (B.C.521-486). Even before that time India tiers of Badakshân, where it turns sharply southand the Indians were known by their name, which ward. Ptolemy does not stand alone in making was derived from Sindhu, the name of their this mistake, for Arrian places the sources in the frontier river. The neighbouring tribes who lower spurs of the Paropanisos, and he is here at one spoke Iranic languages all pronounced, like the with Mela (lib. III, c. vii, 6), Strabo (lib. XV, c. ii, 8) Persian, the s as an h{Pliny, lib. VI, c.XI, 7)' Indus Curtius (lib. VIII, c. ix, 3) and other ancient writers. incolis Sindus appellatus. Thus Sindhu became In fact, it was not ascertained until modern times Hindhu (Hidhu) and as h's were dropped, even whence the Indus actually came. His next error at that early time, Hindhu became Indu. Thus has reference to the length of the Indus valley as the river was called Indus, the people Indoi by measured from the mouth of the Indus to its the Greeks, who first heard of India from the point of junction with the Kabul river. This he Persians. Sindhu probably meant originally the makes to be 11 degrees, while in point of fact it is divider, keeper and defender, from sidh to keep somewhat less than 10. This error is, however, of No more telling name could have been given trivial as compared with the next by which the to a broad river, which guarded peaceful settlers junotion of the Indus with the united stream of both against the inroads of hostile tribes and the the Panjab rivers is made to take place at the attacks of wild animals. ... Though Sindhu distance of only one degree below its junction was used as an appellative noun for river in with the Kabul river, instead of at the distance general, it remained throughout the whole history of 6 degrees or halfway between the upper junc. of India, the name of its powerful guardian river, i tion and the sea. This egregious error not only the Indus." For a full discussion of the origin vitiates the whole of his delineation of the river of the name I may refer the reader to Benfey's system of the Panjab, but as it exaggerates by Indien, pp. 1-2, in the Encyclopaedia of Ersch more than 300 miles the distance between the and Grüber.
lower junction and the sea, it obscures and conThe Indus heing subject to periodic inundations, fuses all his geography of the Indus valley, and more or less violent, has from time to time uuder- so dislocates the positions named in his tables, gone considerable changes. As has been already that they can only in a few exceptional cases be indicated it not unfrequently shifts the channels identified."
93 It is hard enough," says Major-General Hair, "to have to contend with the vagueness, inconsistencia aud contradictions of the old writers; but those are as nothing compared with the obstacles which the physical charac. teristics of the country itself oppose to the enquirer. For ages the Indus has been pushing its bed across the
valley from east to west, generally by the gradual process of erosion, which effectually wipes out every
trace of town and village on its banks; but at times also | by a more or less sudden shifting of its waters into
entirely new channels, leaving large tracts of country to go to waste, and forcing the inhabitants of many a
