321
MISCELLANEA.
OCT. 4, 1872.]
la or Jaim ur on one hand, and into Ch a ul on the other. And Ptolemy says the natives called it Tim y lla (Tiamylla 2). It was probably also the Sib or of Cosmas, as the order of his names indicates, rather than S up a ra. Supāra, on the other hand, appears to correspond exactly to the Swally of our old traders, the Bandar of Surat, north of the Tapti. Supāra is represented by Lassen to be a corruption of (Sanskrit) S. urp fl rak a “Fine shore.” Is Swally a Hindu name, in which case it might be a surviving trace of Supāra, or is it only the Arabic Suwahil, “shores”? I have seen the latter suggestion somewhere, but on the other hand Sup à r a is called Sufilah by Abulfeda, which comes near Sarally. And Langlois quoted
by Rienaud, says that Sup àr a or Suf à la h “answers to the place called by the Sanskrit writers Subahlika,” which comes nearer still. Gildemeister says of Suf à la h “de cujus situ omnis interiit memoria.” But if Swally is Suf à la h, its memory is not clean perished. Super a is mentioned by Friar Jordanus, a contemporary of Abulfeda's, who was there as a missionary. This is perhaps the latest mention of the name in that form.
5. Perhaps few readers of the Antiquary, though
direct line, Sanjān to Supără near Wasāi (N. Lat. 19° 25'; E. Long. 72° 55') 41 miles, and from Supārā to Thănă 17% miles. The last distance, however, is so nearly 5 parasangs, and the distance from Bharoch to Suparā so nearly 56, that it can scarcely be doubted that S up à rà is the Subarah of the Arabs and the Soupara of Ptolemy. T-EDITOR. THE GAULI RAJ.
I see in the Indian Antiquary page 258, some remarks by Mr. Ramsay on my suggestions about the Gâuli Rāj. Monuments similar to those that he men tions are very common in that corner of Khandesh which lies on the head waters of the Panjara River west of Pimpalner.
I believe that the Bhills erect
them both of stone and wood at this day, but had no time when I was there to go into the subject. The favourite figures are horsemen and warriors, and a curious symbol like “the young moon with the old one in her arms.” I do not know whether it repre sents that or the Sun and Moon. With reference to Mr. Ramsay's concluding remarks
I must point out that I have “conjured up the ghost of some lost dynasty” with some success, as I have induced him
to contribute the
Chindwārā
story is told at length by Friar Odoric a few years
legend to the stock of published information on the subject. And when he guesses “that at some past time the upland plains of the Sathpuras and adjoining lands were chiefly occupied by shepherd tribes,” I think he is more open than I am to chaff
later.
about the ten lost tribes of Israel.
it is published at Bombay, know that four Francis san missionaries, comrades of the said Jordanus,
suffered martyrdom at Th a n n a, at the hands of the Musalman “Melic', or Governor, in 1321. The
6.
Cosmas mentions as exported from Kalli
an a (near Bombay) sesamin logs (#32 anazawā). The Periplus also names among exports from Bari gaza “spars of sasamin and ebony" (taxáryov aaaaaiya’ za, goſ,...). And Kazwini (in Gildemeister, p. 218) quotes some verses on the products of India by one Abuldhali of Sind, in which are mentioned
“arbor Zingitana et såsim et piper. No commentator
to my knowledge has explained what this timber is.
Tribe or dynasty, they are gone, and it is the totality of their disappearance that leads me to believe that they cannot have been a nation, for that seldom perishes utterly, while it has been often seen in Europe and Asia that a mighty dynas ty can collapse. “And like the baseless fabric of this vision Leave not a wrack behind.' W. F. SINCLAIR.
But is it not manifestly sistſ, or as it is more
usually called (at least in upper India) shisham”
ON GOMUTRA.
If I am right in supposing the blackwood of Bombay to be a kind of sistſ, we see how old the export is,
THE remarks recently made before the Asiatic Society of Bengal by Bābu Rājendralāla Mitra with regard to the use of beef among the Hindus of ancient days, seem to have startled a good many, and have suggested an inquiry as to the period at
What is the Arbor Zingitana (shajar-al-Zānīj)
in the last quotation? Can it be ginger? A Sanskrit etymology is assigned to the word zingiber, but the mediaeval map of Marino Sanuto (circa 1320) connects the name and article with Zinjor Zanzibar. H. YULE, Colonel.
Palermo, August 28th, 1872. SUPARA.
ALBIRUNI says, from Bahruj to Sindan is 50 para sangs; from thence to Subarah 6 parasangs; and from thence to Tanah is 5 parasangs.” Had he given these distances as 40, 16, and 5 respectively they would have agreed remarkably well with the dis tances from Bharuch to Sanjān 106 miles in a
- Reinaud, Frag. Arab, et Pers. p. 121.
which the cow came to be regarded as a sacred
animal in this country. As a contribution to this
enquiry, it is perhaps worthy of note that one of the “products of the cow" appears to have been held sacred in the days of Patanjali. In his commentary on Pánini I., 496, occurs the sentence. “Gomātra
syāpisyāt” which may be rendered, “ Might there be [a drop] at least of Gomātra 2” This looks very like an inquiry by one who holding the “mū tra sacred, required it for purposes of purification. Now the date of Patanjali has been ingeniously fixed by the late Dr. Goldstücker in the middle of + See my Notes of a Visit to Gujarat, p. 13.
