and this is the form which the historian Matwanlin has adopted. In the official records of the Thang dynasty in the seventh century, India is described as consisting of "Five Divisions," called the East, West, North, South, and Central, which are usually styled the "Five Indies." I have not been able to discover when this system of the "Five Divisions" was first adopted; but the earliest notice of it that I can find is in the year 477 A.D.,* when the king of Western India sent an ambassador to China, and again only a few years later, in A.D. 503 and 504, when the kings of Northern and Southern India are mentioned as having followed his example.† No divisions are alluded to in any of the earlier Chinese notices of India; but the different provinces are described by name, and not by position. Thus we have mention of Yue-gai, king of Kapila, in A.D. 428, and of the king of Gândhâra in A.D. 455. It would appear also that

previous to this time India was sometimes called Magadha, after the name of its best known and richest province; and sometimes the "kingdom of Brahmans," after the name of its principal inhabitants.§ The first of these names I would refer to the second and third centuries after Christ, when the powerful Guptas of Magadha ruled over the greater part of India.

The same division of five great provinces was adopted by the Chinese pilgrim Hwen Thsang in the seventh century, who names them in the same manner, *Pauthier, in Journ. Asiatique, Nov. 1839, p. 291.

+ Ibid., Nov. 1839, pp. 290–292.

‡ Ibid., Oct. 1839, p. 273, and Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1837, p. 65.

§ M. Julien's Hiouen Thsang,' ii. 58; and Pauthier, in Journ. Asiatique, Dec. 1839, p. 447.

THE

CIENT GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA.

the accounts of the Greeks it would appear that cient Indians had a very accurate knowledge of e shape and size of their country. According to *Alexander " caused the whole country to be bed by men well acquainted with it;" and this t was afterwards lent to Patrokles by Xenokles, asurer of the Syrian kings. Patrokles himself e government of the north-east satrapies of the empire under Seleukus Nikator and Antiochus and the information which he collected regardia and the Eastern provinces, has received the tion of Eratosthenes and Strabo for its ac

Another account of India was derived from ister of the Stathmi,t or "Marches" from place, which was prepared by the Macedonian

aphia, ii. 1, 6.

», x. 1, 11. The name of the author of the 'Stathmi' is by Athenæus, i. 103. The original measurements were most ade by Diognetus and Baiton, whose duty it was to ascerstances and lengths of Alexander's expeditions. See Plin.

vi. 21.

B

I. Northern India comprised the Panjâb proper, including Kashmir and the adjoining hill states, with the whole of eastern Afghanistan beyond the Indus, and the present Cis-Satlej States to the west of the Saraswati river.

II. Western India comprised Sindh and Western Rajputâna, with Kachh and Gujarât, and a portion of the adjoining coast on the lower course of the Narbadâ river.

III. Central India comprised the whole of the Gangetic provinces from Thânesar to the head of the Delta, and from the Himâlaya mountains to the banks of the Narbadâ.

IV. Eastern India comprised Assam and Bengal proper, including the whole of the Delta of the Ganges, together with Sambhalpur, Orissa, and Ganjam.

V. Southern India comprised the whole of the peninsula from Nâsik on the west and Ganjam on the east, to Cape Kumâri (Comorin) on the south, including the modern districts of Berâr and Telingâna, Mahârâshtra and the Konkan, with the separate states of Haidarabad, Mysore, and Travancore, or very nearly the whole of the peninsula to the south of the Narbadâ and Mahânadi rivers.

Although the Chinese division of India into five great provinces is simpler than the well-known native arrangement of nine divisions, as described by VarâhaMihira and the Purânas, yet there can be little doubt that they borrowed their system from the Hindus, who likened their native country to the lotus-flower, the middle being Central India, and the eight surrounding petals being the other divisions, which were

an miles, which are equal to 678 British miles. eastern coast from the mouth of the Ganges to Comorin was reckoned at 16,000 stadia, or 1838 h miles; and the southern (or south-western) from Cape Comorin to the mouth of the Indus at stadia more than the northern side, or 19,000 , equivalent to 2183 British miles.

e close agreement of these dimensions, given by ander's informants, with the actual size of the y is very remarkable, and shows that the Indians, at that early date in their history, had a very ace knowledge of the form and extent of their land.

the west, the course of the Indus from Ohind, Attok, to the sea is 950 miles by land, or about miles by water. On the north, the distance from ks of the Indus to Patna, by our military route is 1143 miles, or only 6 miles less than the ement of the royal road from the Indus to Palias given by Strabo on the authority of Mega. Beyond this, the distance was estimated by ages of vessels on the Ganges at 6000 stadia, British miles, which is only 9 miles in excess actual length of the river route. From the of the Ganges to Cape Comorin the distance, d on the map, is 1600 miles, but taking into the numerous indentations of the coast-line, th should probably be increased in the same on as road distance by one-sixth.

e actual length 1866 miles.

This would From Cape

to the mouth of the Indus there is a consi

xv. 1, 11. "Each of the greater sides exceeding the oppo) stadia." (Falconer's translation.),

B 2

derable discrepancy of about 3000 stadia, or nearly 350 miles, between the stated distance and the actual measurement on the map. It is probable that the difference was caused by including in the estimate the deep indentations of the two great gulfs of Khambay and Kachh, which alone would be sufficient to account. for the whole, or at least the greater part, of the discrepancy.

This explanation would seem to be confirmed by the computations of Megasthenes, who "estimated the distance from the southern sea to the Caucasus at 20,000 stadia,"* or 2298 British miles. By direct measurement on the map the distance from Cape Comorin to the Hindu Kush is about 1950 miles,† which, converted into road distance by the addition of onesixth, is equal to 2275 miles, or within a few miles of the computation of Megasthenes. But as this distance is only 1000 stadia greater than the length of the coast-line from Cape Comorin to the mouth of the Indus, as stated by Strabo, it seems certain that there must be some mistake in the length assigned to the southern (or south-western) coast. The error would be fully corrected by making the two coast-lines of equal length, as the mouths of the Ganges and Indus are about equidistant from Cape Comorin. According to this view, the whole circuit of India would be 61,000 stadia; and this is, perhaps, what is intended by Diodorus, who says that "the whole extent of

Strabo, xv. 1, 12.

+ Elphinstone, Hist. of India, Introd. p. 1, estimates the distance from Kashmir to Cape Comorin at about 1900 miles. The Caucasus is at least 50 miles to the north of Kashmir.

Diodorus, Hist., ii. 3.