The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c4.40

c4.40

In the Geography of Ptolemy the true shape of India is completely distorted, and its most striking feature, the acute angle formed by the meeting of the two coasts of the Peninsula at Cape Comorin is changed to a single coast-line, running almost straight from the mouth of the Indus to the mouth of the Ganges. The cause of this mistake is partly due to the erroneous value of 500, instead of 600, Olympic stadia, which Ptolemy assigned to an equatorial degree, partly to an over-estimate in converting road-distance into map-measurement, but chiefly to the excess which he allowed for the distances of land journeys over those of sea voyages.*