The Geography of the Puranas c8.219

c8.219

The Supakṣa range is the range on the left bank of the lower course of the Vakhsh river. The upper course of this river obviously lies in the Meru region and is therefore left out of Purāṇic accounts. On modern maps its southern extension is named Jitym Tau. From the Supakṣa mountain the river falls on the Sikhi mountain. The word ‘Sikhi’ reminds one of the medieval Shignan (or Shiqi-Nan of the Arabs), a region which included the whole of the modern Afghan Badakhshan, surrounded on three sides by the northern bend of the Oxus. The range on the right bank of the Oxus adjoining Badakhshan practically marked the limit of Shiqi-nan. The Sikhi mountain is therefore the Jitym Tau-Alim Tau range on which the Pyandzh ‘falls’ before its junction with the Vakhsh. Thus, after mentioning these two mountains which lie outside the Meru region and which are drained by the two headstreams of the Oxus, the Purāṇas proceed to describe those mountains from which or across which streams come down to the Oxus.