The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c6.s1.t10.1

c6.s1.t10.1

The ruined town of Bambhora, or Bhambúra, is situated at the head of the Ghára creek, which is “supposed by the natives to be the site of the most ancient seaport in Sindh.”* “Nothing now remains but the foundations of houses, bastions, and walls,” but about the tenth century Bhambhûra was the capital of a chief named Bhambo Raja. According to the traditions of the people, the most westerly branch of the Indus once flowed past Bhambûra. It is said to have separated from the main river just above Thatha, and M‘Murdo† quotes the ‘Tabakât-i-Akbari’ for the fact that in the reign of Akbar it ran to the westward of Thatha. To the same effect Sir Henry Elliot‡ quotes Mr. N. Crow, who was for many years the British Resident at Thatha. Writing in A.D. 1800, Crow says, “By a strange turn that the river has taken within these five-and-twenty years just above Tatta, that city is flung out of the angle of the inferior Delta, in which it formerly stood, on the main land towards the hills of Biluchistan.” From these statements it would appear that the Ghára river was the most westerly branch of the Indus down to the latter half of the last century. But long before that time, according to M‘Murdo, it had ceased to be a navigable stream, as both Bhambur and Debal were deserted about A.D. 1250, on account of the failure of the river.* My own inquiries give the same date, as Debal was still occupied when Jalâladdin of Khwâ-razm invaded Sindh in A.D. 1221,† and was in ruins in A.D. 1333, when Ibn Batuta visited Lâhari Bandar, which had succeeded Debal as the great port of the Indus.