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354
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1884.
Koangka ought to represent the Sanskrit kanaka, gold. Mention is made of a town called in the Buddhistic legends Kanakavati (abounding in gold), but no indication is given as to where its locality was (Étude, p. 326).
54. South of this Saura batis with these towns:Empêlathra .....................130° 30° Nadoubandagar..................138° 40' 29° Tamasis ...........................133 29° Koura poreina .................130° 29°
Sau rabatis:--This division is placed below Prasiakê. The ordinary reading is Sandrabatis, which is a transliteration of the Sanskrit Chandravati. The original, Saint-Martin suggests, may have been Chhattravati, which is used as a synonym of Ahikshetra, and applies to that part of the territory of Panchåla, which lies to the east of the Ganges. He thinks it more than probable that Sandrabatis, placed as it is just after a group of towns, two of which belong to Ahikshếtra, does not differ from this Chhattravati, the only country of the name known to Sanskrit Geography in the Gangetic region. None of the four towns can be identified. (See Lassen, Ind. Alt. vol. I, p. 602; Étude, p. 326). Yule, however, points out that this territory is one of those which the endeavour to make Ptolemy's names cover the whole of India has greatly dislocated, transporting it from the S. W. of Rajputâna to the vicinity of Bahår. His map locates Sandra. bitis (Chandrabati) between the River Mahf and the Arávali mountains.
55. And further, all the country along the rest of the course of the Indus is called by the general name of Indo-Skythia. Of this the insular portion formed by the bifurcation of the river towards its mouth is Patalone, and the region above this is Abiria, and the region about the mouths of the Indus and Gulf of Kanthi is Syrastrên ê. The towns of Indo-Skythia are these : to the west of the river at some distance therefrom :
56. Artoarta ...............121° 30 31° 15' Andrapana ........................121° 15' 30° 40'
............................ 122° 20 32° Banagara ........................ 122° 15' 30° 40' Kodrana..........
..............121° 15' 29° 20' Ptolemy from his excursion to the Upper Ganges now reverts to the Indus and completes its geogra.
** Aristoboulos as we learn from Strabo (lib. XV, c. i. 19) when went into this part of India raw * tract of land deserted which contained 1,000 cities with their dependent villages, the Indus having left ita proper channel, was diverted into another, on the left hand much deeper, and precipitated itself into it like a cataract so that it
phy by describing Indo-Skythia, a vast region which comprised all the countries traversed by the Indus, from where it is joined by the river of Kabul onward to the ocean. We have already pointed out how Ptolemy's description is here vitiated by his making the combined stream of the Panjab rivers join the Indus only one degree below its junction with the Kabul, instead of six degrees, or half way between that point and the ocean. The egregious error he has here committed seems altogether inexcusable, for what. ever may have been the sourced from which he drew bis information, he evidently neglected the most accurate and the most valuable of all-the records, namely, of the Makedonian invasion as transmitted in writings of unimpeachable credit. At best, however, it must be allowed the determi. nation of sites in the Indus valley is beset with peculiar uncertainty. The towns being but very slightly built are seldom of more than ephemeral duration, and it, as often happens they are destroyed by inundations, every trace is lost of their ever having existed. The river besides frequently changes its course and leaves the towns which it abandons to sink into decay and utter oblivion." Such places again as still exist after escaping these and other casualties, are now known under names either altogether different from the an. cient, or so much changed as to be hardly recognizable. This instability of the nomenclature is due to the frequency with which the valley has been conquered by foreigners. The period at which the Skythians first appeared in the valley which was destined to bear their name for several centuries has been ascertained with precision from Chinese sources. We thence gather that a wandering horde of Tibetan extraction called Yuei-chi or Ye-tha in the 2nd century B. C. left Tangut, their native country, and, advancing westward found for themselves a new home amid the pasture-lands of Zungaria. Here they had been settled for about thirty years when the invasion of a new horde compelled them to migrate to the Steppes which lay to the north of the Jaxartes. In these new seats they halted for only two years, and in the year 128 B. C. they crossed over to the southern bank of the Jaxartes where they made themselves masters of the rich provinces between that river and the Oxus, which had lately before belonged to the Grecian kinge of Baktriana. This new conquest did not long satisfy their ambition, and they continued to
no longer watered the country by the usual inundation on the right hand, from which it had receded, and this Was olevated above the level, not only of the new channel of the river, but above that of the (new) inundation.
