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parts which lie southward from the Ganges the inhabitants, 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.[1] Artemidorus[2] sets down the distance between the two rivers at 121 miles.
(23.) The Indus, called by the inhabitants Sindus, rising on that spur of Mount Caucasus which is called Paropamisus, from sources
- ↑ Vide Ind. Ant. vol. VI. p. 183, note †.—Ed. Ind. Ant.
- ↑ A Greek geographer of Ephesus, whose date is about 100 B.C. His valuable work on geography, called a Periplûs, was much quoted by the ancient writers, but with the exception of some fragments is now lost.
and so fixed its site at the confluence of the Ganges and Jamunâ. Methora is easily identified with Mathurâ. Carisobora is read otherwise as Chrysobon, Cyrisoborca, Cleisoboras. "This city," says General Cunningham, "has not yet been identified, but I feel satisfied that it must be Vrindâvana, 16 miles to the north of Mathurâ. Vrindâvana means 'the grove of the basil-trees,' which is famed all over India as the scene of Kṛishṇa's sports with the milkmaids. But the earlier name of the place was Kâlikavârrta or 'Kalika's whirlpool.' . . . Now the Latin name of Clisobora is also written Carisobora and Cyrisoborka in different MSS., from which I infer that the original spelling was Kalisoborka, or, by a slight change of two letters, Kalikoborta or Kâlikâbarta." Anc. Geog. of Ind. p. 375. [Carisobora—vv. ll. Chrysoban, Cyrisoborca. This is the Kleisobora of Arrian (ante, vol. V. p. 89), which Yule places at Batesar, and Lassen at Agra, which he makes the Sanskṛit Kṛishṇapura. Wilkins (As. Res. vol. V. p. 270) says Clisobora is now called "Mugu-Nagar by the Musulmans, and Kalisapura by the Hindus." Vide Ind. Ant. vol. VI. p. 249, note ‡.—Ed. Ind. Ant.]
