Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/149

 130 miles), and to the town Palimbothra 425. To the mouth of the Ganges 738 miles. || II According to the MSS. 638 or 637 miles. The places mentioned in this famous itinerary all lay on the Koyal Boad, which ran from the Indus to Faiibothra. The^ have been thus identified. The Hesidrus is now the Satlej, and the point of departure lay immediately below its junction with the Hyphasis (now the Bi&s). Hie direct route thence ('iHdLudluan&, Sirhind, and Amb&l&) conducted the traveller to the ferry of the Jomanes, now the Jamnd, in the neighbourhood of the present Bureah, whence the road led to the Ganges at a pomt which, to judge from the distance given (112 miles), must have beeb near the site of the far-famed Hastinapura. The next stage to be reached was Bhodopha, the position of which, both its name and its distance from the (ranges (119 miles) combine to fix at Dabhai, a small town about 12 miles to the south of Anupshahr. Kalinipaxa, the next stage, Mannert and Lassen would identify with Kanai:g (the Eany&kubja of Sanskrit); but M. de St.-Martin, objecting to this that Fliny was not likely to have designated so important and so celebrated a city by so obscure an appellation, finds a site for it in the neighbourhood on the banks of the Ikshumati, a river of Fanchfila mentioned in the great Indian poems. This river, he remarks, must also have been called the Kalinadi, as the names of it still in current use, Kalini and Kalindri, prove. Now, as ' paxa' transliterates the Sanskrit ' paksha,' a side, Kalinipaxa, to judge from its name, must designate a town lying near the Kalinadi. The figures which represent the distances have given nse to much dispute, some of them being inconsistent either with others, or with the real distances. The text, accord- ingly, has generally been supposed to be corrupt, so far at least as tiie figures are concerned. M. de St.-Martin, however, accepting the figures nearly as they stand, shows them to be fairly correct. The first difficulty presents it- self in tiie words, " Others give 825 inilesfor this distance" By * this d/istance* cannot be meant the distance between the Ganges and Bhodopha, but between the Hesidrus and 'Bhodopha, which the addition of the figures shows to be 399 miles. The shorter estimate of others (326 miles) measures the length of a more direct route by way of PatiaiA, Thanesvara, Panipat, and Dehli. The next diffi- culty has probably been occasioned by a corruption of the text. It lies m the words " Ad Calinipaxa oppidum CLXVII. D. Alii CCLXV. mill." The numeral D has generally been taken to mean 500 pices, or half a Boman mile, making the translation run thus :— ^' To Kalinipaxa Digitized by Google