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AUGUST, 1889.]
THE COUNTRY OF MALAKOTTA.
241
if he supposes that it must have included, besides Malabar, the whole southern part of the Madras Presidency beyond the Kåvêrî. According to Mr. Beal, the Chinese editor remarks in a note that Malakotta was also called Chi-mo-lo. These syllables are satisfactorily identified by Dr. Caldwellil with Tamila, the name of the Tamil people, whose country is called Damirice (i.e. Tamil-un) on the Peutinger Tables.
Four centuries after Hiuen-Tsiang, the term Malaya was in tise for the same tract. For Albérant enumerates the possessions of Jaur (i.e. the Chola) along the coast in the following order :-Daraur (Dravida), Kanji (Kanchi), Malays, and Kunk (Konkan). A second enumero tions of the countries along the coast begins from the opposite side :-LAran, with the city of Jlmür, Vallabha, for which Rashidu'd-din supplies the correct reading Malaya, 16 Kanji, and Darvad (Dravida). Alberuni's first list places Malaya between Dravida and Kašich on one side and the Koukaņ on the other, just as Hinen-Tsiang places Malakotta between Dravida with its capital Kanchipura on one side and Konkanapura on the other. The second list begins from Lata or Gujarat and omits the Konkan, though in the preceding sentence it mentions Thani (on the island of Salsette), which, according to p. 203, was the capital of the Konkan.
According to Hinen-Tsiang, Malakotta was bounded on the south by the Malaya mountains, which bordered the sea, and in which sandal-trees were found. To the east of the Malaya mountains was Mount Potalaka, on the top of which was a lake from which there flowed & great river, and which was the residence of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. Going north-east from this mountain, on the border of the sea, there was a town, from which people embarked for Ceylon.
In Sanskrit and Malayalam, the term Malaya is applied to the Western Ghats, and the sandal is called Malaya-ja, i.e. the produce of Malaya.' In Tamil, Malayam or Malaiyam, besides being used in the same sense, is the name of another mountain, which is also called Chandanachala or Chandanadri(i.e. the mountain of the sandal'), Podigai or Podiyam, which is gupposed to be the residence of the sage Agastya, and after which the Pandya king is called Podiys-verpani.e. 'the lord of the mountain Podiyam'). Dr. Caldwellie states that the source of the Tamraparni river is in the mountain Podigai, and identifies the latter with Ptolemy's Byrruyó, in which the Zahov took its rise. In a footnote of his paper on Potalaka, 17 Mr. Beal suggests, with some diffidence, that Hiuen-Tsiang's Potalaka might be the same as Podigai and as Ptolemy's Byrtiy. It seems to me that the agreement between the two words Podigai and Potalaka is close enough to justify this identification, which struck me independently before I had seen Mr. Beal's paper. The river mentioned by Hiuen-Tsiang would then be intended for the Tamraparni. According to Taranatha's History of Buddhism, 18 Potala was the name of a mythical mountain (pp. 141, 142 f., 223) in the south (p. 139), the seat of Avalokitekvara. O the way to it, the ocean (p. 157), a great river, and a lake, had to be crossed (p. 142). This myth of the northern Buddhists must have been known to Hiuen-Tsiang, and the change of Podiyam or Podigal into Potala or Potalaks may be due to a popular etymology, which HinenTsiang made either unconsciously or from a desire to connect the information collected on his visit to Southern India with that contained in his holy books. From similar motives, either Hiuen-Tsiang or his Buddhist informants seem to have transformed Agastya, who is supposed to reside on Podigai, into the Bodhisattva Avalokitosvara.
In the case of the Malaya mountains, it must be assumed that Hinen-Tsiang was misinformed, if he placed them to the south instead of the west of Malakotta. As for an
11 Comparative Grammar, 2nd edition, p. 14 of the Introduction, 11 Alberuni's India, translated by Sachau, Vol. I. p. 200.
18 ibid. p. 209. 14 Løren is the same as Lar-diah, i.e. Lata-desa or Gajarât, on p. 205. Jimor or Saimir is probably the modern Choul ; see Yule and Burnell's Hobson-Jobnon, 8. Y.
15 Elliot and Dowson's History of India, Vol. I. p. 68. # Comparative Grammar, 2nd edition, p. 1101. of the Introduction. 17 Journal of the Royal Aviatic Society, New Series, Vol. XV. p. 388. 16 Translated from Tibetan into German by Schiefner, St. Petersburg, 1860.
