GrocraPpHy oF INDIA. 459 
Tus Sanscrit name of Chunar is Charan ddri, or Charana-giri, which 
is nearly synonymous with Pédantica, ‘This last is mentioned in the 
Raina-cosa, and in some Puranas, where it is called Padapa. 
Berwern these huge rocky pomts the Ganges is constantly at. work, 
excavating deep bays and gulf, which, after long perieds,.she fills up 
entirely, and then scoops them out again. Even the huge rocky points, 
T just mentioned, have: by no. means escaped her unrelenting’ activity. 
They are cut down almost perpendicularly from top to bottom; and it is 
written in the Purdivas, that the Ganges has carried away the half of the 
hills of Chunar, and Mudgir; but there was no occasion for any written 
authority in the present case. 
Ir is written in the Vayu. and Vishnu-puranas, that Flastind-pur was 
destroyed by the Ganges, early in the .Cali-yuga. Whe Vayw places this 
event in the sixth generation after the great war, and the Vishnu-puraéna 
an. the eighth; that is. between eleven or twelve hundred years before our 
era; and it is recorded there, that the seat of empire. was transfered -to 
Causambi near Allahabad. It is well-known that the old site of Patali- 
putra or Paina, has been entirely carried away by the Ganges, and in its 
room, several'sand banks were formed, and which are delineated in Major 
ReNNeELL’s map of the course of the Ganges with his usual accuracy. 
However Colonel Conesrooxe, Surveyor General, having made anew survey 
of the river, found that these several sand banks were consolidated, 
iato an island about: sixteen miles long, and which masks entirely the 
mouth of the Giandacé, nay it has forced it, in an oblique direction about 
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