river. Mr. Beal, however, in the note appended, confounds the Gandaki or modern Gandak with the Hiranyavati, apparently considering them names of the same river; this, however, is not so; the Hiranyavati is the modern Hirana or Chhota Gandak river,—see Cunningham's Geog., page 432; and from the Mahábhárat it further appears that the names Hiranyavati and Gandaki did not apply to the same river, as both names occur in the list of rivers, and, to make assurance doubly sure, the Gandak has the qualifying epithet of "great" attached to it; the inference then is that the names Hiranayavati and Gandaki were always applied to distinct rivers.
But if Hiranyavati be a name of the Chhota Gandak (and of this there is no doubt), there appears not only nothing impossible, but the probabilities are strongly in favour of the great Gandaki being named the Hiranyavaha; for if one of the rivers were gold-bearing, the other could not well avoid being gold-hearing also, the smaller river being merely a branch of the latter.
Whether the Chhota Gandak at any time had an independent course to the Ganges is a point that I have not materials to discuss, nor is it of much importance for the present investigation; for, whether it had an independent course or not, as it takes its rise in the lower Himalayas or Siwâlik hills, and as the great Gandak flows through and receives tributaries from the same tract only a very few miles off, if the smaller river he gold-hearing, the other must necessarily be so also. The converse of this, however, would not hold, for obvious reasons; but it has been shown that it is to the little river that the name Hiranyavati, or gold-abounding, belongs; therefore if (and I cannot imagine it otherwise) the name gold-abounding were given to the small river for its actually yielding gold, a name of similar meaning would naturally be only the just due of the other and larger river also. I consider then that the names Hiranyavati and Hiranyavaha belong to the two Gandaki rivers, the little and the great. It is worthy of note that Hiranyavati is a feminine name and Hiranyavaha masculine, and if the former were given to the small or Chhota Gandak, the other would very appropriately be applied to the larger Gandak.
Amara in his Kosha, or some one of his commentators or transcribers, appears through some confusion to have placed Hiranyavaha as a synonym of the Son. To this supposition I am led by the circumstance that the names supposed to be synonyms of the Son are immediately followed by the names
