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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
c. xxv,) he seems to have fallen into the mistake of making them identical. It is surprising, as Lassen has remarked, that Ptolemy should notice the Souastos, and yet say nothing about the Garoia, especially as he mentions the district of Goryaia, which is called after it, and as he must have known of its existence from the historians of Alexander. He has also, it may be noted, placed the sources of the Souastos too far north.
The five great rivers which watered the region of the Panjab bear the following names in Ptolemy: Bidaspês, Sandabal, Adris or Rhonadis, Bibasis and Zaradros. This region in early times was called the country of the seven rivers-Sapta Sindhu, a name which, as Sir H. Rawlinson has pointed out, belonged primarily to the seven head streams of the Oxus. As there were only five large streams in the locality in India to which the name was applied, the number was made up to seven by adding smaller affluents or lower branches of combined streams, to which new names were given. The Vedic Aryans, however, as Mr. Thomas remarks, could never satisfactorily make up the sacred seven without the aid of the comparatively insignificant Sarasvati, a river which no longer exists. These rivers are notably erratic, having more than once changed their bed since Vedic times.
Bidaspês-This is now the Jhelam or river of Behat, the most western of the five rivers. It drains the whole of the valley of Kasmir, and empties into the Akesinês or Chenâb. Ptolemy, however, calls their united stream the Bidaspês. By the. natives of Kasmir it is called the Bedasta, which is but a slightly altered form of its Sanskrit name the Vitastá, meaning wide-spread. The classical writers, with the sole exception of our author, call it the Hydaspês, which is not so close to the original as his Bidaspês. It was on the left bank of this river that Alexander defeated Pôros and built (on the battle-field) the city of Nikaia in commemoration of his victory.
Sandabal is an evident mistake of the copyist for Sandabaga. The word in this corrected form is a close transliteration of Chandrabhaga (lunae portio), one of the Sanskrit names of the River Chenâb. In the Vedic hymn which has been quoted it is called the Asikni, 'dark-coloured,' whence the name given to it by the Greeks in Alexander's time, the Akesinês. It is said that the followers of the great conqueror discerned an evil omen in the name of Chandrabhaga on account of its near similarity to their own word Androphagos or Alexandrophagos, 'devourer of Alexander' and hence preferred calling it by the more ancient of its two names. It is the largest of all the streams of the Pañchanada. Vigne says that Chandra
[NOVEMBER, 1884.
bhaga is the name of a small lake from which the river issues. Pliny has distorted the form Chandabaga into Cantabra or Cantaba (lib. VI, c. xx). According to the historians of Alexander the confluence of this river with the Hydaspês produced dangerous rapids, with prodigious eddies and loud roaring waves, but according to Burnes their accounts are greatly exaggerated. In Alexander's time the Akesinês joined the Indus near Uchh, but the point of junction is now much lower down.
The Adris or Rhouadis is the Ravi, a confluent of the Akesinês, but according to Ptolemy of the Bidaspês. The name Râvi is an abridged form of the Sanskrit Airavati. It is called by Arrian (Anab. lib. VI, c. viii), the Hydraôtés, and by Strabo (lib. XV, c. i, 21) the Hyarôtis. Arrian (Indik. sec. 4) assigns to it three tributaries-the Hyphasis, the Saranges and Neudros. This is not quite correct, as the Hyphasis joins the Akesinês below the junction of the Hydraôtês.
The Bibasis is the river now called the Beiäs, the Vipåsa of Sanskrit. This word "Vipâsâ' means uncorded,' and the river is said to have been so called because it destroyed the cord with which the sage Vasishtha had intended to hang himself. It is called the Hyphasis by Arrian (Anab. lib. VI, c. viii), and Diodôros (lib. XVII, c. xciii), the Hypasis by Pliny (lib. VII, c. xvii, 20) and Curtius (lib. IX, c. i), and the Hypanis by Strabo (lib. XV, c. i, 17) and some other writers. It falls into the Satadru. It was the river which marked the limit of Alexander's advance into India.
27. Sources of the River Zaradros ............1320 Confluence of the Kôa and Indus ......124° Confluence of the Kôa and Souastos .......122° 30′ 31° 40' Confluence of the Zaradros and Indus ...............124° Confluence of the Zaradros and Bidaspês........ Confluence of the Zaradros and Bibasis ...............131° Confluence of the Bidaspês and Adris ...........126° 30′ 31°30′ Confluence of the Bidaspês
30°
and Sandabal.......... ....126° 40′ 32° 40' The Zaradros is the Satlaj, the most easterly of the five rivers. It is called in Sanskrit the Satadru, i.e., flowing in a hundred (branches). Pliny (lib. VI, c. xvii) calls it the Hesydrus, Zadrades is another reading of the name in Ptolemy. The
..1250
36°
31°
30°
34°
