��OVER THE ANCIENT BATTLE-GROUND
��associated with the little village of Rivad or Rivand, nearMihr,as explained in the footnotes below. Mount Gunavat, or Ganavat, of the Bundahishn, also a part of the ridge of Vishtasp, is to be identified with the group of mountains north and north- east of Nishapur, which likewise forms a portion of the Binalud Kuh, and which has its name preserved in the present village of Gunabad, in the district of Tus, a considerable distance to the northeast of Nishapur (see p. 297, below). ^ Uncertainty
��may add that at Rivand, near Nisha- pur, in the fifth century a.d. (on July 31, 454), a number of Armenian Christian priests, who had been taken prisoners in the war with Vartan, suf- fered martyrdom under Yazdagard II (see Justi, in Grundr. Iran. Philol. 2. 529-530). The name Rivand re- calls that of the little village of Rivad at the mountain's base not far from the village of Mihr. It is spelled Rivad or Reivat on the maps, and in Nasir ad-Din's Diary, p. 121 ; but Clerk (1861), JRGS. 31. 43, twice spells its name as 'Rehwund,' and it is given as Rivand by my friend Major Sykes {Geog. Journ. 37. 152 and map), who visited it in 1908, a year after my own visit to the place. While there, I tested the natives about the name, but received regularly Rivad or Ribat, though with hesitancy (prob- ably due to repeated inquiry) they did give Riband ; and they added that Riba(n)d was the name of the entire flank of the mountain east of Mount Mihr. On this apparent variation we must call attention to the sharp dis- tinction drawn between Rivad and Rivand by Yakut (1220 a.d.)— see Barbier de Meynard, Diet. geog. p. 272. Nevertheless, Firdausi gives Ribad (or Raibad) as the name of the mountain which the Iranians held in an earlier war against the Turanians who had seized Mount Gunabad (spelled
��Kunabad) — see Mohl, Livre des rois, 3. 337, 346, 380, 391, 392, and compare the next note.
1 Mount Gunavat, or Ganavat, of the Bundahishn (Bd. 12. 29, 34 ; 19. 8), and the Kunabad of the Shah Namah, is the same as the mountain Gunabad (see preceding note for ref- erences) which was seized by the Tu- ranians in the earlier war as a base of operations against the Iranians en- camped on the mountain of Ribad or Raibad (supposed to be Mount Re- vand). According to the Shah Namah (tr. Mohl, 3. 347), a river separated the two strategic positions. This stream is apparently the Ab-i Shur, on which the town of Rivand seems to have lain, between the eastern end of the Jagatai range and the mountains of Nishapur. The presence of the river here, as contrasted with its absence at Rivad near Mihr, is par- ticularly emphasized by Houtum- Schindler, Academy, 29. 313. Mount Gunavat, or Gunabad, is furthermore associated with the mountain-fastness of Gunbadan, where Isfandiar was confined (Shah Namah, tr. Mohl, 4. 354, 370, 456 ; Tha'alibi, tr. Zotenberg, Histoire, p. 280 ; and cf . Jackson, Zoro- aster, p. 215) ; the original title of the prison has been conjectured to be Kanbandan-Diz, 'fortress where the women were shut up' (see Stackel- berg, ZDMG. 54. 103-104), with which
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