532 AN ESSAY ON THE 



cul, or Ser-cu! close, or on the borders of the lake : 

 and Serpanil by Ser-pamer. These mountains are 

 called in the Purcn'as Cunuma, the Comadi of 

 Ptolemy, and Atijana or Crishna the birK'k nrioun- 

 tains. Camber-Ali gave me a dieadtul account 

 of them from report, for he ne\er saw them, bat 

 at a distance. 



The fourth lake in the North is called Maha- 

 Bhaclra, which is probably the lake Saisans, from 

 which flows the ri\er Irtiz, As the epithet Maha 

 implies a great kke, I am sometimes inclined to 

 suppose it to be the same with the lake Baikal } 

 but it is too much out of ti)e way : though 1 must 

 confess, that its distance can be no objection with 

 the PaKr/n'ics. Besides, the Baikcl lake is called 

 to this day Szveto-r/iore, or the holy and sacred sea, 

 and the countiy about it, and all along the Ergone, 

 or jh'goji, is considered as holy by the Hindus, who 

 occasionally visit this sacred spot, Eell, in his 

 travels, mentions liis seeing a Hindu there from 

 Madras. Strahleneeug saw another at Jdboisk, 

 who, it seems, had settled there. I have seen two 

 who had visited that country, one was called Arees- 

 n:ara, whom I mentioned in my essay on mount 

 Caucasus. The four sacred rivers springing from 

 the Man-sarovara, according to the divines of 

 Tibet, are the Brama-puira, the Ganges, the Indus, 

 and the Sila. 'i'lic Ganges is the only one that 

 really issues from that lake, or if the tinee others 

 do, it must be through subterranean channels; and 

 such communications, whether real or imaginary, 

 are very conimon in the Puran'as. The Sitd may 

 be the Siloda, Sitlud/t, supposed to communicate 

 with the \Satlaj or 'Satcdara, thus called from its 

 liuiidred branches or bellies, through which it is 

 supposed to fall into the sea. 



