Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/159

 I 140 parts which He southward from the Ganges the in- habitants, already swarthy, are deeply coloured by the sun, though not scorched black like the Ethiopians. The nearer they approach the Indus the more plainly does their complexion betray the influence of the sun. The Indus skirts the frontiers of the Prasii, whose mountain tracts are said to be inhabited by the Pygmies.* Artemidorust sets down the distance between the two rivers at 121 miles. (23.) The Indus, called by the inhabitants S i n d u s, rising on that spur of Mount Caucasus which is called P a r o p a m i s u s, from sources mnd 80 fixed its site at the conflaence of the Ganges and Jamnn&. Methora is easily identified with Mathnrfi. Carisobora is read otherwise as Chrysobon, Cyrisoborcaj Cleisoboras. " This city," says General Cunningham, "has not yet been identified, but I feel satisfied that it must be Vrinddvcma, 16 miles to the north of MathurA. Vrindd- vana means 'the grove of the basil -trees,' which is famed all over India as the scene of Kjrishiia's sports with the milkmaids. But the earlier name of the place was KAUkavdrttaf or * Kalika's whirlpool.* . . . Now the Latin name of Clisobora is also written Carisobora and Cyrisohorica in different MSS., from which I infer tiiat the original spelling was Kalisohorka, or, by a slight change of two letters, Kalikohorta or K&likdbarta." Anc. Oeog. oflnd. p. 375. [Carisobora — w. 11. Chrysoban, Gyrisoborca. This is the Kleisobora of Arrian (ante, vol. "v. p. 89), which Yule places at Batesar, and Lassen at Agra, which he makes the Sanskrit Kpshnapura. Wilkins (As. Res. vol. V. p. 270) says Clisobora is now called Mugu-Nagar by the MusuLnans, and Kalisapuraby the Hindus." Vide Ind, Ant. vol. VI. p. 249, note 1.— Ed. Jnd. Anf] • Vide Ind, Ant vol. VI. p. 183, note f.— Ed. Ind. Ant. t A Greek geographer of Ephesus, whose date is about 100 B.C. His valuable work on geography, called a Peri- «>li25, was much quoted by the ancient writers, but with the exception of some fragments is now lost. Digitized by Google