Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/151

 182 a spur is called I m a u s (meaning in the natiye language snotoy),^ are the Isari, Cosyri, I z g i, and on the hills the Chisiotosagi,'*' and FUny assigns 425 miles as the distance from the con- fluence of the rivers to Palibothra, but, as it is in reality only 248, the figures have probably been altered. He gives, lastiy, 638 miles as the cQstance from Palibothra to the mouth of the Granges, which agrees closely with the esti- mate of Megasthends, who makes it 5000 stadia— if that indeed was hi» estimate, and not 6000 stadia as Strabo in one passage alleges it was. The distance by land from P&tn& to Tamluk (Tamralipta, the old port of the Ganges' mouth) is 445 English or 480 Boman miles. The distance by the river, wMeh » sinuous, is of course much greater. See E*tvde swr le Qiogra/phie Orecque et Latine de VInde, par P. V. de Saint-Martm, pp. 271-278. ^ By EmoduB was generally designated that part of the Himalayan range whicb extended along Nepfil and Bhi^tan and onward toward the ocean. Other forms of the name are Emoda, Emodon, Hemodes. Lassen derives the word fromthe Sanskrit haimavata,. in Prftkyit haimdta, * snowy.' If this be so, Hemodus is the more correct form. Another derivation refers the word to * H^m&dri' {hema, * gold,' and ad/ri, ' mountain')^ tbe *' golden mountains,' — so called either because they were thought to contain gold mines, or because of the aspect they presented when their snowy peaks reflected the golden effulgence of sunset. Imaus represents the Sanskrit himavata; 'snowy.' The name wa» applied at first by the Greeks to the Hindilk Kush and the Himftlayas, but was in course of time transferred to the Bolor range. This chain, which runs north and south, was regarded by the ancients as dividing^ Northern Asia into ' Skythia mtra Imaum' and * Skythia extra Imaum,' and it has formed for ages the boundary between China and Turkestan. • These four tribes were located somewhere in Easmtr or its immediate neighbourhood. The Isari are unknown, but are probably the same as the Brysari previously men- tioned by Pliny. The Cosyri are easily to be identified with the KhasSra mentioned in the MahAohdrata as neigh- bonrs of the Daradas and Kasmiras. Their name, it has been conjectured, survives in KhAchar, one of the three great divisions of the Kfithis of Gujar&t, who appear to have come originally from the Panj&b. The Izgi are mentioned in Ptolemy, under the name of the Sizyges, as a people of S^rik^, This is, however, a mistake, as they inhabited the alpine region which extends above Kasmfr towards the Digitized by Google