148 ESSAY ON 



El-Edrissi says tliat the island of Smnandar is near 

 the Gauges. Probably the author of the Periplus 

 confounded it with Sagara island, a name of the same 

 import, at the mouth of the Ganges and called also 

 Oceanis by Diodorus the Sicilian. The context, 

 however of this author, and of more modern geo- 

 graphers, show that it cannot be the same island. 

 Salmasius and others improperly laugh at the idea 

 of an island at sea being called Oceanis. T\\\s Oceanis 

 was probably the place of abode of old Samudra, 

 the old man of the sea, often mentioned in romances 

 in the east. 



The word Samudra, or Samundur, are pronounced, 

 Sumundu, and Mundu in the dialects of Ceylon ; and 

 there is an island of that name mentioned by an- 

 cient geographers in the eastern seas, and supposed 

 by them to be the same with Taprobanh or Cet/lon ; 

 but Stephanus of Byzantiuin says that the silver 

 island made part of Taprobaiie, which is really the 

 case. It is also called by them Palai-Simundu, which 

 I take to be a corruption from Fulo-Simunduj Piilo- 

 Symotta, the island of Simundu, or Symotta. The de- 

 scription of that island, under the name of Simondu, 

 does by no means agree with Ceylon : but is easily re- 

 conciled with SumairOy though we know but little of 

 the interior parts. 



The large lake called Jlfegisba, with the metropolis, 

 does not exist in Ceylon, but is probably that exten- 

 sive lake to the south o? Me?ia?igcabow, mentioned by 

 Mr. Marsden in his map of Sumatra^ from which 

 several large rivers seem to issue. The harbour of 

 Hippuros or Ipporus in Pulo-Simundu is called Aypoor 

 by Danville, and Ippu by Mr. Marsden from the 

 Satiscrit and Hindi 'I-pura or 'I-pu, and in a deriva- 

 tive fiom At pira, the town of the goddess T Qf 



