38 ESSAY ON 



Soane, hcyomd Moorsheclabad, as far as Rangamatty ; 

 whicli he places in their Maii'dalam, or country, under 

 the name of Oreophonta, as I have shewn in my essay 

 on the chronology of the Hindus : in the west, he 

 mentions Sambalaca, now an asscmhlaee of small 

 huts, on a sandy islet, opposite to Patna, called 

 Sambtdpoor, and Sabelpooj- in Major Ren n ell's Atlas. 



II. The Nubian Geographer, with Renaudot's 

 two Musulman travellers, place together the countries 

 of Harciz (Orissa) Mehrdge, and Mabed or Mdyed^ 

 T/ifek or Tucha (now Dhdcd,) and Mougd^ or the 

 country of the Magas, or Mugs, now Chittagong, 

 Arracan, &c. The country o^ Mehrdge, says D'Her- 

 BELOT, is placed, by some, in the Green Sea, or Gulf 

 of Bengal; and by others, in the Chinese Seas: and 

 the Gangetic provinces, at least Bengal^ were known 

 iinder that name, even as late as the fifteenth cen- 

 tury ; for it is called Mahdrdjia^ or Maarascia by 

 NicoLO De Conti, who visited that country. There 

 were two countries of that name, which are occa- 

 sionally confounded together : the first, at the bottom 

 of the Green Sea, included Bengal, and other countries 

 on the banks of the Ganges. The second compre- 

 hended the Peninsula of Malacca, and some of the 

 adjacent islands, in the Seas of China. In these 

 countries the Emperors and Kings always assumed 

 the title of Maha'-ra'ja', even to this day. Their 

 country, in general, was called Zapdge or Zabdja, 

 which is a corruption from Java, or Jabd^ as it was 

 called in the west ; and was also the name of Suma- 

 tra, according to Ptolemy, who calls it Jdbd-diu^ 

 and to Marco Paulo. In the peninsula of Malacca 

 was the famous emporium oi Zdba: Zdbdja, in San- 

 scrit, would signify those Zdba. The ^m\nYeof Zdbdje 

 was thus called, probably from its metropolis Zdbd, 

 as well as the principal islands near it. Zdbd was a 

 famous emporium, even as early as the time of 

 Ptolemy. It remained so till the time of the two 



