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DECEMBER, 1884.)
PTOLEMY'S GEOG. BK. VII, CH. 1, SS 80-81.
365
80. Towards the Ganges River the Sabarai, in whose country the diamond is found in great abundance, their towns are : Tasopion ........................ 140° 30' 22° Karikardama.....................141° 20° 15'
81. All the country about the months of the Ganges is occupied by the Gangaridai with this city Gange, the Royal residence...146° 19° 15'
Kokkonagai:-Lassen locates this tribe in Chutia Nagpur, identifying Dâsara with Doeså in the hill country, between the upper courses of the Vaitarant and Suvarnarêkha. He explains their name to mean the people of the mountains where the koka grows, koka being the name of a kind of palm-tree. Yule suggests that the name may represent the Sanskrit Kakamukha, which means
crow.faced, and was the name of a mythical race. He places them on the Upper Mahanadi and farther west than Lassen. The table gives them two towns near the Ganges.
Kartinaga and Kartasina:-The former, Yule thinks, may be Karpagarh near Bhagalpar, perhaps an ancient site, regarding which he refers to the Jour. R. As. Soc. vol. XVIII, p. 395; Kartasina he takes to be Karnasõnagarh, another ancient site near Berhampur (J. R. A. S. N. S., vol. VI, p. 248 and J. 4. S. B., vol. XXII, p. 281).
Sala kênoi:-This people may be located to the west of the Godavari, inland on the northwestern borders of Maisolia. Their name, Lassen thought (Ind. Alt., vol. III, p. 176) might be connected with the Sanskrit word Sdla, the Sal tree. Yule suggests that it may represent the Sanskrit Saurikirņa. None of their towns can be recognized.
Sabarai:-The Sabarai of Ptolemy Cun. ningham takes to be the Suari of Pliny, and he would identify both with the aboriginal Savaras or Suars, a wild race who live in the woods and jungles without any fixed habitations, and whose country extended as far southward as the Pennar River. These Savaras or Suars are only a single branch of a widely spread race found in large numbers to the S. W. of Gwalior and Narwar and S. Rajputâna, where they are known as Surrius. Yule places them farther north in Dôsa rêne, towards the territory of Sambhalpur, which, as we have already remarked, produced the finest diamonds in the world. Their towns have not been identified.
Gangaridai:-This great people occupied all the country about the mouths of the Ganges. Their capital was Gang 6, described in the Periplús
as an important seat of commerce on the Ganges. They are mentioned by Virgil (Georg. III, 1. 27), by Valerius Flaccus (Argon. lib. VI, 1. 66), and by Curtius (lib. IX, c. ii) who places them along with the Pharrasii (Prasii) on the eastern bank of the Ganges. They are called by Pliny (lib. VI, c. Ixv) the Gangaridae Calingae, and placed by him at the farthest extremity of the Ganges region, as is indicated by the expression gens novissima, which he applies to them. They must have been a powerful people, to judge from the military force which Pliny reports them to have maintained, and their territory could scarcely have been restricted to the marshy jungles at the mouth of the river now known as the Sundarbans, but must have comprised a considerable portion of the province of Bengal. This is the view taken by Saint-Martin. Bengal, he says, represents, at least in a general way, the country of the Gangaridae, and the city which Pliny speaks of as their capital, Parthalis can only be Vardhana, a place which flourished in ancient times and is now known as Bardhwan. The name of the Gangari. dai has nothing in Sanskrit to correspond with it, nor can it be a word, as Lassen supposed, of purely Greek formation, for the people were mentioned under this name to Alexander by one of the princes in the North-west of India. The synonymous term which Sanskrit fails to supply is found among the aboriginal tribes belonging to the region occupied by the Gangaridai, the name being pre. served almost identically in that of the Gonghris of S. Bahår, with whom were connected the Gangayis of North-western, and the Gangrar of Eastern Bengal, these designations being but variations of the name which was originally common to them all.
Gange:-Various sites have been proposed for Gange. Heeren placed it near Duliapur, a village about 40 miles S. E. of Calcutta on a branch of the Isamatt River; Wilford at the confluence of the Ganges and Brahmaputra, where, he says, there was a town called in Sanskrit Hastimalla, and in the spoken dialect Hathimalla, from elephants being picquetted there; Murray at Chittagong; Taylor on the site of the ancient Hindu Capital of Banga (Bengal) which lies in the neighbourhood of Sonargaon (Suvarnagrima), a place 12 miles to the S. E. of Dhakka; Cunningham at Jêsor; and others further west, near Calcutta, or about 30 miles higher up the Hughli, somewhere near Chinsuri. Another Gang ê is mentioned by Artemidoros above or to the N. W. of Palibothra, and this Wilford identifies with Prayag, i.e., Allahabad, but Gros. kurd with Anupshahr.
Ptolemy now leaves the Gangetic regions and
