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[11]

The boundaries of India, on the north, from Ariana to the Eastern Sea,1 are the extremities of Taurus, to the several parts of which the natives give, besides others, the names of Paropamisus, Emodus, and Imaus,2 but the Macedonians call them Caucasus; on the west, the river Indus; the southern and eastern sides, which are much larger than the others, project towards the Atlantic Sea, and the figure of the country becomes rhomboïdal,3 each of the greater sides exceeding the opposite by 3000 stadia; and this is the extent of the extremity, common to the eastern and southern coast, and which projects beyond the rest of that coast equally on the east and south.

The western side, from the Caucasian mountains to the Southern Sea, is estimated at 13,000 stadia, along the river Indus to its mouth; wherefore the eastern side opposite, with the addition of the 3000 stadia of the promontory, will be 16,000 stadia in extent. This is both the smallest and greatest breadth of India.4 The length is reckoned from west to east. The part of this extending (from the Indus) as far as Palibothra5 we may describe more confidently; for it has been measured by Schœni,6 and is a royal road of 10,000 stadia. The extent of the parts beyond depends upon conjecture derived from the ascent of vessels from the sea by the Ganges to Palibothra. This may be estimated at 6000 stadia.

The whole, on the shortest computation, will amount to 16,000 stadia, according to Eratosthenes, who says that he took it from the register of the Stathmi (or the several stages from place to place),7 which was received as authentic, and Megasthenes agrees with him. But Patrocles says, that the sum of the whole is less by 1000 stadia. If again we add to this distance the extent of the extremity which advances far towards the east, the greatest length of India will be 3000 stadia; this length is reckoned from the mouths of the river Indus along the coast, in a line with the mouths to the abovementioned extremity and its eastern limits. Here the people called Coniaci8 live.

1 Eratosthenes and Strabo believed that the eastern parts of Asia terminated at the mouth of the Ganges, and that, consequently, this river discharged itself into the Eastern Ocean at the place where terminated the long chain of Taurus.

2 According to Major Rennell, Emodus and Imaus are only variations of the same name, derived from the Sanscrit word Himmaleh, which signifies ‘covered with snow.’

3 In some MSS. the following diagram is to be found. The River Indus.

4 The extremity of India, of which Eratosthenes speaks, is Cape Comorin, which he placed farther to the east than the mouth of the Ganges.

5 Patelputer or Pataliputra near Patna, see b. ii. ch. i. § 9.

6 The reading is σχοινίοις, which Coraÿ changes to σχοίνοις, Schœni: see Herod. i. 66. The Schœnus was 40 stadia. B. xii. ch. ii. § 12.

7 Athenæus (b. xi. ch. 103, page 800, Bohn's Classical Library) speaks of Amyntas as the author of a work on the Stations of Asia. The Stathmus, or distance from station to station, was not strictly a measure of distance, and depended on the nature of the country and the capability of the beasts of burthen.

8 The reading Coliaci in place of Coniaci has been proposed by various critics, and Kramer, without altering the text, considers it the true form of the name. The Coliaci occupied the extreme southern part of India. Cape Comorin is not precisely the promontory Colis, or Coliacum, which seems to answer to Panban, opposite the island Ramanan Kor.

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