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370
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEXBER, 1884.
Trinesia (or group of 3 islande):-Ptolemy places it off the coast of Limyrike between Tyndis and Mouziris but nearer the former.
Leuk ê:- This is a Greek word meaning * white. The island is placed in the Periplds off the coast where Limyrikê begins and in Ptolemy near where it ends.
Nanigêris:-To judge from Ptolemy's figures he has taken this to be an island lying between Cape Kumari (Comorin) and Taproband (Ceylon).
Kory:-It has already been noticed that Kôry was both the name of the Island of Ramébvaram and of the promontory in which it terminated.
CAP. 2. Position of India beyond the Ganges. 1. India beyond the Ganges is bounded on the west by the river Ganges; on the north by the parts of Skythia and Sêrikê already described, on the east by the Sinai along the Meridian, which extends from the farthest limits of Sörikê to the Great Gulf, and also by this gulf itself, on the south by the Indian Ocean and part of the Green Sea which stretches from the island of Menonthias in a line parallel to the equator, as far as the regions which lie opposite to the Great Gulf.
India beyond the Ganges comprised with Ptolemy not only the great plain between that river and the Himalayas, but also all south-eastern Asia, as far as the country of the Sinai (China). Concerning these vast regions Ptolemy is our only ancient authority. Strabo's knowledge of the east was limited in this direction by the Ganges, and the author of the Periplus, who was a later and intermediate writer, though he was aware that inhabited countries stretched far beyond that limit even onwards to the eastern end of the world, appears to have learned little more about them than the mere fact of their existence. Ptolemy, on the other hand, supplies us with mucb information regarding them. He traces the line of coast as far as the Gulf of Siam (his great gulf) enumerating the tribes, the trading marte, the river mouths and the islands that would be passed on the way. He has also a copious nomenclature for the interior, which embraces its inhabitants, its towns, its rivers, and its mountain ranges. His conceptions were no doubt extremely confused and erroneous, and his data, in many instances, as inconsistent with each other as with the erality. Still, his description contains important elements of truth, and must have been based upon authentic information. At the same time an attentive study of his nomenclature and
the accompanying indications has led to the satisfactory identification of a few of his towns, and a more considerable number of the rivers and mountains and tribes which he has specified.
His most notable error consisted in the supposition that the eastern parts of Asia were connected by continuous land with the east coast of Africa, 80 that, like Hipparkhos, he conceived the Indian Ocean to resemble the Mediterranean in being surrounded on all sides by land. He makes accordingly the coast of the Sinai, beyond the Gulf of Siam, turn toward the south instead of curving up towards the north. Again he represents the Malay Peninsula(his Golden Khersonese) which does not project so far as to reach the equator, extend to 4 degrees southward from it, and he mentions neither the Straits of Malacca nor the great island of Sumatra, unless indeed his labadios be this island, and not Java, as is generally supposed. By the Green Sea (Opacons Dalacoa) which formed a part of the southern boundary is meant the southern part of the Indian Ocean which stretched eastward from Cape Prasum (Cape Delgado) the most southern point on the east coast of Africa known to Ptolemy. The island of Menouthias was either Zanzibar or one of the islands adjacent to it. It is mentioned by the author of the Periplús.
In his description of India beyond the Ganges Ptolemy adheres to the method which he had followed in his account of India within the Ganges. He therefore begins with the coast which he describes from the Eastern Mouth of the Ganges to the Great Promontory where India becomes conter minous with the country of the Sinai. The moun. taina follow, then the rivers, then the towns in the interior, and last of all the islande.
2. The soncoast of this division is thus described. In the Gangetic Gulf beyond the Mouth of the Ganges called Antibolei:
The coast of the Airrhadoi:Pentapolis ........... ...... 150° 18° Mouth of River Katabėda... 151° 20' 17° Barakoura, & mart ............ 152° 30' 16° Mouth of the River Toko
sanna ........................ 153° 14° 30'
Wilford, probably misled by a corrupt reading, took the name of the Airrhada i to be another form of Antibole. He says (Asiat. Research, Vol. XIV.p. 444) "Ptolemy says that the easternmost branch of the Ganges was called Antibole or Airradon. This last is from the Sanskrit HradAna; and is the name of the Brahmaputra. Antibole was the name of a town situated at the confluence of several large rivers to the S. E. of Dhakka and now called Feringibazar." By the
