The Geography of the Puranas c8.173

c8.173

‘As late as a quarter of a century ago you have seen, stretching along the upper Chirchik valley, a narrow strip of taiga or thickets, in which you might have come across a wild boar. The surrounding country was just sun-scorched hilly steppeland where the only object likely to catch your eye was a poor man’s lonely Yurt, a weather-worn tent of the kind, about which they used to say, “of a thousand stones thrown upon it, none stays on; they all fall in through a thousand holes”. And this other saying was descriptive of life in such a Yurt. “Inside it we can see nothing but the stars when we look up, or the black earth when we look down.”’ ¹³ Another characteristic feature of these areas is the occurrence of Takirs or patches of clay ground, so smooth that they are like mirrors when seen from afar, and resound under the hoofs of horses like asphalt. In fact the desert conditions mentioned in the Purāṇas give us a glimpse of the Kizil Kum which presses against the mountainous rampart overlooking Tashkand and Chimkend.