252 



Statistics of the 



[No. 38, 



Toicns and Villages. 



Pytun is the capital of the whole Sircar (known as 

 Puttun by the Mahomedans) or often styled Moonghy 

 Pytun. It stands upon the left banks of the Godavery, in a bend of 

 the river, in latitude 19° 33"19' north, and 75° 26 /r 2' east. 



Travelling distance to Bombay 209 miles. To Madras 695 miles. 

 To Hydrabad 307 miles. ' To Nagpoor 299 miles. To Aurungabad 

 32 miles. To Jaulnah 44 miles. To Ahmednuggur 61 miles. To 

 Calcutta 976 miles. 



In the sacred writings of the Hindoos, the name 

 Ancient name. ^ p rat j s ] fl( . an or u ^ Q (Capital ;" Saintpoora or the 

 ** City of Blood," Munja Pratishtan, and Brahmapooree. Pratishtan, 

 are all supposed to refer to the modern city of Pytun; and this 

 appears a plausible conjecture, from the confirmation it receives 

 of uniform tradition to that effect ; but for any consistent, or cre- 

 dible account of those remote periods, we are left as much in the 

 dark, as we are regarding the heroic ages of the Greeks. Chro- 

 nology and Geography seldom are seen hand in hand in the nar- 

 rative, the substance of which is, oftentimes, so outrageously ex- 

 travagant, that what to reject, or receive as authentic, from the 

 imperfect record, is a puzzling matter ; however, of this we are to- 

 lerably certain, that the foundations of Pytun were laid in very dis- 

 tant times, and according to the Mackenzie Papers, was the birth- 

 place, and metropolis of the Rajah Salivahan. It is however from 

 strangers to the country, the Greeks, that we derive, the slight infor- 

 mation we possess of the earlier periods of India, and in the Periplus 

 of the " Erythrean Sea," we read of a town called Plithana, in the 

 Deccan, which is generally supposed to be Pytun. It is mentioned 

 as one of two distinguished marts, the name by which the other was 

 known being Tagara. Plithana was 20 days march south of Broach, 

 (230 miles) and Tagara a great city, was ten day's journey east of 

 Plithana,* Mr. Elphinstone in a note in his History of India, shows 

 very probably how the error may have arisen, by Ptolemy mistaking 

 Plithana (haioana,) for Paithana (haioana,) a circumstance, readi- 

 ly enough imagined, where the difference is so small ; to assign the 

 site of Tagara, is however as he observes, a more difficult matter : 

 his opinion, that its situation must be somewhere in the neighbour- 



* Elphinstone's History of India, Vol. I. p. 422. 



