484 Essay on the Ancient Geography of India. [No. 6. 



and his neighbour king Samandal, Samunder or Samudri, the Samorin 

 on the Malabar Coast, was transformed into a Crauncha bird, and 

 exiled to some island in that sea. There he was caught by a peasant, 

 who carried him to some king on that coast, where he recovered his 

 former shape. The king having heard his story sent him back to 

 Persia in some of the vessels, which were going to sail for that 

 country. A storm drove the ship on the inhospitable country of 

 Queen Labe ; and he alone escaped ashore. Labe implies covetous- 

 ness and inordinate desires, from the, Sanskrit verb lubha, in Hindi 

 lobhi. From lubha comes the Latin lubedo and libido ; and her name 

 Libit seems to re-appear in that of an island, on that coast. Ai-Mdtd 

 is from the Sanskrit Ainh-M&td, the name of Brahmi-Sita, who, as I 

 observed in another essay, is Ecdcshara : that is, her name consists 

 of one letter, which is I long, and designates the female power of 

 nature. This letter by mystics, is called the root, and Ainh its seed. 

 Thus Ainh-Mdtd signifies the woman emphatically ; or our honoured 

 lady and mother. Hence she is styled the Woman simply : at least 

 it was so formerly. This was at first an honourable appellation ; but 

 Maha deva, as he was on a visit to her made use of it in such a ques- 

 tionable a manner, that the goddess grew angry, and kept him waiting 

 for twelve years at her door ; and there is a long, and fulsome legend 

 about this incident. I and its seed At, or Ainh is perhaps the mystic 

 Ei of Delphos, concerning which ancient philosophers have said much 

 to little purpose. Chan'digrdm was the metropolis of Strirdjya, in 

 the spoken dialects Istrirdja ; from which circumstance, it is called 

 Asterusa, or Asterusia by Euhemerus. It was, says he, one of the 

 three towns destroyed by Uranus, or Arhan. This is a well known 

 legend in India : and these three towns are styled Tripuri, or Traipuri 

 under Tripurasura, who was Tri-Calingadhipati, and had a town in 

 each Calinga. These were destroyed at once, by the unerring arrow 

 of S'iva, who was standing in the district of Tipperah. One of these 

 towns was to the eastward of the Ganges, the other near Amaracan'taca, 

 and the third to the west of the Indus. But this subject 1 shall 

 resume in my next essay on Anu- Gangam. 



The inhabitants of that coast were called Ichthyophagi or fish-eaters 

 by the Greeks. By the Paura/nics, they are styled Matsya-siras, and 

 in Persian romances Mahi ser or Ser-mahi, Fish heads ; a very appro- 



