190 ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY OF KAS'MIR. [Extra No. 2, 
Some remains of old buildings are reported to exist at this place ; I have 
not seen it myself. 
About five miles due south of AUgom we find a small lake known 
as Nil a nag, situated in a valley between low spurs descending from the 
Pir Pantsal Range. It appears to have been formed by an old landslip 
which blocked a narrow defile in the Valley. This lake does not appear 
ever to have enjoyed any particular sanctity. But Abu-1-Fazl by some 
curious misapprehension transfers to it the legends of the famous 
Nilanaga (at Vernag). He adds to them what appears like a garbled 
version of the story of the city submerged in the Mahapadma or Volur 
lake. 1 
Nagam is adjoined on the north by the Pargana of Yech which 
extends to the immediate vicinity of STlnagar. Its old name is given 
as Iksika by STivara. 2 In the centre of the tract lies an arid alluvial 
plateau known as Ddm a dar Udar, where an ancient popular tradition 
surviving to the present day has localized the legend of King Damodara. 
The story as related by Kalhana, represents the king as having built 
a town on the Udar which latter was called 
Damodara’s Udar. _ o t , , , . 
after him Damodarasuda . 6 In order to bring 
water to it he had a great dam, called Guddasetu, constructed by super¬ 
natural agency. Once hungry Brahmans asked the king for food, just 
as he was going to bathe. The king refused to comply with their 
request until he had taken his bath. The Brahmans thereupon cursed 
him so that he became a snake. Ever since the unfortunate king is 
seen by people in the form of a snake “rushing about in search of water 
far and wide on the Damodara-Suda.” He is not to be delivered from 
the curse until he hears the whole Ramayana recited to him in a single 
day, a task which renders his release hopeless. 
The modern name Dam a dar Udar is the exact equivalent of 
Kalliana’s Damodara-Suda , the old Skr. term suda meaning a ‘ place 
where the soil is barren.’ The local name Guddasetu still lives in that 
of the small village GudVsuth situated at the south foot of the Udar. 
Just at this point the latter shows its greatest relative elevation and 
falls off towards the valley with a steep bank over one hundred feet 
high. The wall-like appearance of this bank probably suggested the 
story of an embankment which was to bring water to the plateau. In 
view of the configuration of the ground no serious attempt at irrigation 
by means of an aqueduct could ever have been made in this locality. 
1 Compare Ain-i-Akb., ii. p. 363. It is possible that of the two Nilanagas which 
the Nilamata, 903, mentions besides the famous spring of that name, one was located 
in the Nagam lake. 
2 S'riv. iii. 25. 
s Compare for detailed references, Bajat. i. 156 note. 
