The Geography of the Puranas c8.191

c8.191

Statement (e) above affirms that in the Kuru land there are two Kul (or regional) mountains, Sumahat and Uccarita with 'hundreds of summits' (para 24). Obviously these mountains are the Ural mountains and the Highlands of Central Siberia from where the Yenesei receives its right-bank tributaries.¹⁶ The details of these distant mountains are missing in the Purāṇas except that they are rich in precious metals and are sparsely populated (served by Siddhas and Cāraṇas only—para 21). The plain between these Kul mountains, i.e., the basin of the Irtysh, however, contained forests, flowers, fruits, diamonds and gold and supported compact population groups living here and there, depending entirely (including clothing) on forest produce (para 11). This is surely a reference to the taiga belt of Western Siberia.