The Geography of the Puranas c11.s2.41

c11.s2.41

i. The lowland belt which runs parallel to the Indus along its western bank has always been an extremely dry and sandy tract. Ptolemy mentions only about a dozen towns of some importance from Amb (Embolina) to Karachi (Kolaka). There were, however, a few communities which occupied the valleys of western streams which could find their way into the Indus in spite of the intervening desert belt. One of such rivers is the Kurram whose valley was the territory of the Vātadhānas already mentioned. In the south of this there appears a town named Paradabathra in Ptolemy's list of stages on the route parallel to the west bank of the Indus. The name is indicative of a janapada mentioned in the Purāṇas as Pārada which from the Greek accounts appears to coincide with the Mithankot region of Dera Ghazi Khan district of the Punjab (Pakistan).