India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c8.s13.20

c8.s13.20

¹ In Baltistan such contraptions are called *zak* (from Tibetan *yak* skins). A *zak* is now a raft of sewn-up goat skins, one leg of each left open for inflation. The skins are tied to a platform of sticks or have a fisherman's net spread on them on which the passengers travel at the rate of eight miles an hour, the Shighar *zak* consisting of four rows of four skins. In the Panjab a rude raft is made by tying together two inflated bullock-skins, with a *charpoy* on it for passengers. The rafts are so light that on reaching a downstream destination the crew merely pick them up and walk back along the bank with them. For the skin-raft (*bhastrā*), coracle (*piṭaka*), dug-out float (*kāṇḍa-plava*, *Kāśikā*, IV.4.5), see Hornell, Primitive Types of Water Transport in Asia, J.R.A.S., 1946, pp. 124-141.