Chapter INAUM to INDIA of I by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

chain of Hemodus from Scythia, inhabited by that tribe of Scythians who are called Sakai; and on the fourth side, turned towards the West, the Indus marks the boundary, the biggest or nearly so of all rivers after the Nile.” —Megasthenes, in Diodorus, ii. 35. (From Müller’s Fragm. Hist. Graec., ii. 402.)

A.D. c. 140.—“Tà [Greek Text] Ta de apo tou Indou proV ew, touto moi estw h twn Indwn gh, kai Indoi outoi estwsan. —Arrian, Indica, ch. ii.

c. 590.—“As for the land of the Hind it is bounded on the East by the Persian Sea (i.e. the Indian Ocean), on th e W. and S . by the countries of Islam, and on the N. by the Chinese Empire. … The length of the land of the Hind from the government of Mokran, the country of Mansura and Bodha and the rest of Sind, till thou comest to Kannuj and thence passest on to Tobbat (see TIBET), is abo ut 4 months, and its breadth from the Indian Ocean to the country of Kannuj about three months.”— Istakhri, pp. 6 and 11.

c. 650.—“The name of Tien-chu (India) has gone through various and confused forms. … Anciently they said Shin-tu; whilst some authors called it Hien-teou. Now conforming to the true pronunciation one should say In-tu.”—Hwen T’sang, in Pèl. Bouddh., ii. 57.

c. 944.—“For the nonce let us confine ourselves to summary notices concerning the kings of Sind and Hind. The language of Sind is different from that of Hind. …” Mas’udi, i. 381.

c. 1020.—“India (Al-Hind) is one of those plains bounded on the south by the Sea of the Indians. Lofty mountains bound it on all the other quarters. Through this plain the waters descending from the mountains are discharged. Moreover, if thou wilt examine this country with thine eyes, if thou wilt regard the rounded and worn stones that are found in the soil, however deep thou mayest dig,—stones which near the mountains, where the rivers roll down violently, are large; but small at a distance from the mountains, where the current slackens; and which become mere sand where the currents are at rest, where the waters sink into the soil, and where the sea is at hand—then thou wilt be tempted to believe that this country was at a former period only a sea which the debris washed down by the torrents hath filled up. …”— Al-Biruni, in Reinaud’s Extracts, Journ. As. ser. 4. 1844.

„ “Hind is surrounded on the East by Chín and Máchín, on the West by Sind and Kábul, and on the South by the Sea.”—Ibid. in Elliot, i. 45.

1205.—“The whole country of Hind, from Pershaur to the shores of the Ocean, and in the other direction, from Siwistán to the hills of Chín. …” — Hasan Nizami, in Elliot, ii. 236. That is, from Peshawar in the north, to the Indian Ocean in the south; from Sehwan (on the west bank of the Indus) to the mountains on the east dividing from China.

c. 1500.—“Hodu quae est India extra et intra Gangem.”—Itinera Mundi (in Hebrew), by Abr. Peritsol, in Hyde, Syntagma Dissertt., Oxon, 1767, i. 75.

1553.—“And had Vasco da Gama belonged to a nation so glorious as the Romans he would perchance have added to the style of his family, noble as that is, the surname ‘Of India,’ since we know that those symbols of honour that a man wins are more glorious than those that he inherits, and that Scipio gloried more in the achievement which gave him the surname of ‘Africanus,’ than in the name of Cornelius, which was that of his family.”—Barros, I. iv. 12.

1572.—Defined, without being named, by Camoens:

“Alem do Indo faz, e aquem do Gange
Hu terreno muy grãde, e assaz famoso,
Que pela parte Austral o mar abrange,

Lusiadas, vii. 17.

Englished by Burton:

“Outside of Indus, inside Ganges, lies
a wide-spread country, famed enough of yore;
northward the peaks of caved Emódus rise,

1577.—“India is properly called that great Province of Asia, in the whiche great Alexander kepte his warres, and was so named of the ryuer Indus.”—Eden, Hist. of Trauayle, f. 3v.


The distinct Indias. c. 650.—“The circumference of the Five Indies is about 90,000 li; on three sides it is bounded by a great sea; on the north it is backed by snowy mountains. It is wide at the north and narrow at the south; its figure is that of a half-moon.”—Hwen T’sang, in Pèl. Bouddh., ii. 58.

1298.—“India the Greater is that which extends from Maabar to Kesmacoran (i.e. from Coromandel to Mekran), and it contains 13 great kingdoms. … India the Lesser extends from the Province of Champa to Mutfili (i.e. from Cochin-China to the Kistna Delta), and contains 8 great Kingdoms. … Abash (Abyssinia) is a very great province, and you must know that it constitutes the Middle India.”—Marco Polo, Bk. iii. ch. 34, 35.

c. 1328.—“What shall I say? The greatness of this India is beyond description. But let this much suffice concerning India the Greater and the Less. Of India Tertia I will say this, that I have not indeed seen its many