Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature c8.s1.32

c8.s1.32

63. After these, the course turns toward the east again, and sailing with the ocean to the right and the shore remaining beyond to the left, Ganges (Gāṅga= Vaṅga; cf. Plolemy’s Gangaridae) comes into view, and near it the very last land toward the east, Chryse (Suvarṇa-bhūmi). There is a river near it called the Ganges, and it rises and falls in the same way as the Nile. On its bank is a market town which has the same name as the river, Ganges (near modern Gaṅgāsāgar). Through this place are brought malabathrum and Gangetic spikenard and pearls, and muslins of the finest sorts, which are called Gangetic. It is said that there are gold mines near these places, and there is a gold coin which is called caltis. And just opposite this river there is an island in the ocean, the last part of the inhabited world toward the east, under the rising sun itself; it is called Chryse; and it has the best tortoise-shell of all the places on the Erythraean Sea.