The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c5.s4.t18.1

c5.s4.t18.1

The ancient town of Ajudhan is situated on the high bank of the old Satlej, 28 miles to the south-west of Depâlpur, and 10 miles from the present course of the river. Its foundation is assigned to a Hindu saint, or raja, of the same name, of whom nothing else is recorded. This part of the Doâb is still known as Surátdes, a name which recalls the Surakousæ of Diodorus, and the Sudrakæ and Oxudrakæ of other Greek writers. Now, the Sudrakæ are always coupled with the Malli by classical authors, just as Ajudhan and Multân are joined together by the Muhammadan historians. I think, therefore, that we may look upon Ajudhan and its neighbour Depâlpur as two of the chief cities of the Sudrakas, or Surakas, who, in the time of Alexander, were one of the free nations of India. Dionysius and Nonnus use the form of Hudarkæ, Pliny has Sydracæ, which agrees with Strabo's Sudrakæ; and Diodorus has Surakousæ. Arrian and Curtius alone give Oxudrakæ. Strabo adds that they were said to be descendants of Bacchus;* and as Chares of Mytilene states that the name of the Indian god Σοροάδειος meant οἰνοποιός, or the “Wine-bibber,” I infer that the people who boasted a descent from Bacchus may have called themselves Surákas, or Bacchidæ. The *d* in *Sudrakæ* I look upon as a redundant addition of the Greeks, which is also found in the *Adraistæ* of Arrian and the *Andrestæ* of Diodorus. The Sanskrit name of this people was *Arásh-traka*, or “the Kingless,” which is well preserved in Justin’s *Arestæ*. Surakai, or the descendants of *Sura*, must therefore be the true Greek form. This is confirmed by the longer form of the name given by Diodorus as Συρακοῦσαι, which is most probably derived from the Sanskrit *surâ*, “wine,” and *kusa*, “mad, or inebriated.” It would thus mean simply the “drunkards,” a nickname which was no doubt given by their Arian neighbours, who were very liberal in their abuse of the Turanian population of the Panjâb. Thus the Kathæi of Sangala are stigmatized in the Mahâbhârata as “thieving *Bâhikas*,” as well as “wine-bibbers” and “beef eaters.”† They are also called by a variety of names, as Madra, *Bâhika*, Araṭṭa, and Jârttikka, and not even once by their own proper name, which, as we know from Alexander’s historians, was *Kathæi*, which is still preserved in the *Kathi* of the present day. I confess, therefore, that I look upon many of the ethnic appellations which the Greeks have handed down to us as mere nicknames, or abusive epithets applied by the Brahmanical Arians to their Turanian neighbours. For instance, the name of Kambistholi, which Arrian* gives to a people on the Hydraotes, or Râvi, is most probably derived from the Sanskrit Kapiṣasthala, that is, “Wine-land, or the Tavern,” which would be a natural epithet for the country of the Surákuṣas, or “wine-bibbers.” Similarly I would explain Oxudraka as Asuraka, or the “Demons.”