— 
Vol. IX, No. 10.] India in the Avesta of the Parsis. 433 
[N.S.] 
now known to the moderns including the cori sete en 
by their Iranian names. The indigenous Vedic 
country, through which the Indus (which has veil at nam 
India, to the country) flows, is Sapt-Sindhu. So, the sitions 
ought to have been kno wn by the name Sindhustan and sh 
Hindustan whic th is a fonina of the old Iranian name. 
river has preserved its old Indian name, viz. Sindhu, but the 
country has taken its Iranian name Hindu (Hindustan). The 
all the other Westerners, knew this country and know it even 
now, by its Iranian name. 
e Greek name of one of the branches of the Indus, viz. 
sete eae Jhelum (Vedic Vitasta), i is Hydaspes. This name is 
Tra e word ‘‘ aspes’’, which forms the second part of 
sha name, is Avesta ‘‘as a” corresponding to the Sanskrit 
a4 (asia) ates equus,’ horse. We find the word in the 
Avesta and Greek names of another Persian river also. It 
is the Hvaspa of the Avesta,! the Choaspes of the Greeks, 
the modern Cherkheh. Unfortunately, we have not in the 
extant Avesta the names of the seven branches of the Indus. 
But this Greek name of one of the branches shows that the 
ranch was named by the Greeks after its Iranian name. 
Similarly, the main river and the country itself were named 
after their Iranian names 
In the Sassanian times of the later wings hi commentators 
of the Avesta, the Indus having only five branches, the 
covered another reason for the name. ‘They said: ‘‘ Av 
hapt-Hindukanih hand Aigh sar-khuda haft ait, 8 4.6, i¢ is 
called Hapt-Hindu, because there are seven rulers over it. 
Possibly there were seven rulers ruling over the land of the 
Indus ~ hs tim 
As stated by. Dr. Haug, at least two facts lead to show 
that the go in which the name of India occurs as 
Hapt-Hindu, was written many centuries before Christ. 
had founded Ecbatana (Agabatana, Hamdan). That was in 
B.C. 708. This great city of ancient Persia is not mentioned 
the Vendidad, was written Hane before B.C. 708. 
Secon ndly,, the city of Balkh, which is named as eee in 
the Vendidad, is — of there as the vad of ‘‘ Eredh 
| Zamy&d Yasht, 67. Vide my paper on the river Karun (Asiatic 
Papers, 1- 
"Spiegels Text of the Pahlavi Vendidad, p. 7, 1. 1. 
3 Bk. 
