[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Historical geography](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography) › [The Geography of the Puranas](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.ali-1966) › c8.223 # The Geography of the Puranas c8.223 The Geography of the Purāṇas c8.223 - **Language:** English ### [c8.223](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.ali-1966.c8.223) The Kumuda mountain is the Ak-Tau Rangan Tau range which lies between the Kafirnigan river and the Vakṣu river. It is tempting to associate Kumud with the Greek term 'Kumedai', a Śaka tribe which, according to Ptolemy (vi, 12-13), inhabited the mountainous tract which undoubtedly corresponds to the term Kumedh. Yaqubi and Ibn Rusta refer to a locality of which the name may be restored as Kumedh. Yaqubi says that Munk was the frontier 'towards the lands of the Turks, towards the locality called Rasht, Kumedh and Bamir (Pāmir).' Ibn Rusta certainly places the Kumedh, downstream of Rasht (upper Vakhsh valley). The author of \*Ḥudūd-al-Ālam\* says that the Kafirnigan river rises from the limits of the Kumji. In fact, in the early medieval period Kumedh signified the mountainous region of Jitym Tau-Rangan Tau between the Vakhsh and the Kafirnigan rivers inhabited by the Kumji Turks and formed as a sort of buffer state between the Chaghanian and the Khuttal, two important principalities of the upper Oxus basin. Thus it would not be unreasonable to presume that by the Kumud mountain the Purāṇas probably mean the mountain of Kumedha, i.e. the ridges between the Vakhsh-ab and Kafirnigan rivers. - [Previous: c8.222](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.ali-1966.c8.222) - [Next: c8.224](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.ali-1966.c8.224) - [Up: c8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.ali-1966.c8) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.ali-1966.c8.223](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.geography.ali-1966.c8.223) · Pramāṇa