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DECEMBER, 1884.)
PTOLEMY'S GEOG. BK. VI. CH. 16.-SERIK.
405
which ought to rest upon informations of the 1st to the sources of the Ganges; it is only on partcentury of our æra; whilst to the north of the
ing from this last point that the Himalaya runs great chain we have nothing more than names directly to the east, and it is there also that with thrown at hazard in an immense space where our Ptolemy the name of Emodoa begins, which demeans of actual comparison show us prodigious signates the Eastern Himalaya. Now it is on displacements. This difference is explained by Imaos itself or in the vicinity of this grand systhe very nature of the case. The Brahmans, who tem of mountains to the north of our Panjab and had alone been able to furnish the greater part to the east of the valleys of the Hindu-Koh and of the information carried from India by the of the upper Oxos that there come to be placed, Greeks regarding this remotest of all countries, in a space from 6 to 7 degrees at most from south had not themselves, as one can see from their to north, and less perhaps than that in the matter books, anything but the most imperfect notions. of the longitudes, all the names which can be Some names of tribes, of rivers, and of mountains, identified on the map where Ptolemy has wished without details or relative positions-this is all the to represent, in giving them an extension of nearly Sanskrit poems contain respecting these high 40 degrees from west to east, the region which valleys of the North. It is also all that the tables he calls Skythia beyond Imaos and Serika. On of Ptolemy give, with the exception of the purely designation is there immediately recognizable arbitrary addition of graduations. It is but among all the others-that of Kasia. Ptolemy recently that we ourselves have beeome a little indicates the situation of the country of Kasim better acquainted with these countries which are towards the bending of Imaos to the east above so difficult of access. We must not require from the sources of the Oxos, although he carries the ancients information which they could not his Montes Kasii very far away from that towards have had, and it is of importance also that we the east; but we are sufficiently aware beforeshould guard against a natural propensity which hand that here, more than in any other part of disposes us to attribute to all that antiquity has the Tables, we have only to attend to the no. transmitted to us an authority that we do not menclatare, and to leave the notations altogether accord without check to our best explorers. If out of account. The name of the Khasa has the meagre nomenclature inscribed by Ptolemy been from time immemorial one of the appellaon his map, of the countries situated beyond tions the most spread through all the Himalayan (that is to the east) of Imaos, cannot lead to a range. To keep to the western parts of the chain, regular correspondence with our existing notions, where the indication of Ptolemy places us, we that which one can recognize, suffices nevertheless there find Khala mentioned from the heroic ages to determine and circumscribe its general position. of India, not only in the Itihdeas or legendary Without wishing to carry into this more pre- stories of the Mahabharata, but also in the law cision than is consistent with the nature of the book of Mana, where their name is read by the side indications, we may say, that the indications, of that of the Dared a, another people well known, taken collectively, plsce us in the midst of the which borders in fact on the Khasa of the north, Alpine region, whence radiate in different diree. The Khaba figure also in the Buddhist Chronicles tions the Himalaya, the Hindu-Koh and the of Ceylon, among the people subdued by Asoka Bolor chain-enormous elevations enveloped in in the upper Panjab, and we find them mentioned an immense girdle of eternal snows, and whose in more than 40 places of the Kasmir Chronicle cold valleys belong to different families of among the chief mountain tribes that border on pastoral tribes. Kasmir, a privileged oasis amidst Kasmir. Baber knows also that a people of the these rugged mountains, appertains itself to name of Khas is indigenous to the high valleys this region which traverses more to the north in the neighbourhood of the Eastern Hindu-Kôh; the Tibetan portion of the Indus (above the point and, with every reason, we attach to this indigenwhere the anciente placed the sources of the Inous people the origin of the name of Kashgar, which dus) and whence run to the west the Oxos and is twice reproduced in the geography of these Iazartes. With Ptolemy the name of Imaos high regions. Khasagiri in Sanskrit, Where, (the Greek transcription of the usual form of according to a form more approaching the Zend the name of Himalaya) is applied to the central Khabaghaïri, signifies properly the mountains of chain from the region of the sources of the the Khaba. The Akhasa Khôra, near the Kasia Ganges (where rise also the Indus and its regio, is surely conneeted with the same greatest affluent, the Satadru or Satlaj) to beyond nationality. The Aspakarai, with a place of the sources of the laxartes. The general direc- the same name (Aspakare) near the Kasia Montes, tion of this great aris is from south to north, have no correspondence actually known in these saring a bend to the south-east from Kaśmir high valleys, but the form of the name connecta
