225 
1892.] H. G. Raverty— The Mihran of Sind and its Tributaries. 
Mansuriyah, and persons going from one to the other cross the river 
here. Nirun is a place of little importance, but it is fortified. * * * 
two works, and in others, including Al-Idrisi in the text above. Modern writers 
identify its position satisfactorily to themselves, but differ as to its whereabouts. 
Elliot fixes it at Jarak, while Cunningham prefers Haidar-abad. He says (“ Ancient 
India,” p. 279) “the people still know it—Haidarabad—as Nirankot,” but this re¬ 
quires confirmation. He also says, “it was situated on the western bank of the 
river. * * * At present the main channel of the Indus runs to the west of Haidar¬ 
abad, but we know that the Phuleli or eastern branch, was formerly the principal 
stream. According to McMurdo, the change of the main stream [by which McMurdo 
means the Hakra, Wahindah, or Sagarali, not the “ Phuleli ”] to the westward of 
Haidarabad, took place prior to A. H. 1000, or A. D. 1592 [Haigh previously quoted, 
says “ the change occurred only in the middle of the last century,” and he is per¬ 
fectly right], and was coincident with the decay of Nasirpur [Nasr-pur is the correct 
name], which was only founded in A. H. 751, or A. D. 1350.” 
The Nasr-pur here referred to, I may observe, lies some seventeen miles N. N. 
E. of Haidar-abad, and was founded by Sultan Firuz Shah, the Khalj Turk ruler of 
Dihli; while the place referred to by Elliot (“ Indian Historians,” Vol. I, p. 216) as 
being a place of great importance as early as the time of Dudah, the Sumrah, who 
was contemporary with Sultan ’Abd-ur-Rashid of Ghaznin, some three centuries 
before, refers to an entirely different place. That refers to Nasir-pur in the south¬ 
east of Sind. It was still the chief place in that part in Akbar Badshah’s time, and 
gave name to one of the five sarhdrs into which the territory dependent on Thathah 
was divided. It was here that the same Sultan founded a fort on the banks of the 
Sankrah [Hakra], on his advance against Thathah the last time from Guzarat. 
Cunningham continues : “ As Nasirpur is mentioned by Abul Fazl [Gladwin’s 
translation ?] as the head of one of the subdivisions of the province of Thatha, the 
main channel of the Indus [the main channel, as I have before mentioned, was the 
Hakra] must have flowed to the eastward of Nirun Kot or Haidarabad at as late a 
date as the beginning of the reign of Akbar.” I may observe that Abu-l-Fazl’s 
work was completed in the forty-second year of Akbar Badshah’s reign, and that 
Nasir-pur (a different place from Nasr-pur) was, as stated above, the name of the 
most south-easterly sarhar of the Thathah province, one of the seven mahalls of 
which was Nasir-pur, giving name to the sarkdr, and that Amar-Kot was another. 
In this part a small fortified town was also founded by Sultan Firuz Shah, the Khali 
Turk, on his advance from Gondhal to Thathah. 
Elliot, on the other hand, identified, according to the writer previously quoted, 
Nirun Kot with “ Jarak, and the Kinjar lake near Helai in its neighbourhood, as 
that in which the fleet of Muhammad Kasim [Muhammad, son of Kasim, is meant, 
the latter having been dead for years] lay,” but Cunningham adds that “the Kinjur 
lake has no communication with the Indus,” and thus he disposes of Jarak “identi¬ 
fied” by Elliot and others ; but Elliot says (Yol. I, p. 400) : “ I am disposed to place 
Nirun at Helai, or Helaya, a little below Jarak. # # # Lakes abound in the neigh¬ 
bourhood, and are large enough, especially the Kinjar, to have admitted Muhammad 
Kasim’s fleet.” 
The attempt to identify places mentioned in the ancient history of Sind according 
to the recent state of the channel of the Indus, as if its banks had been of adamant 
instead of hour-glass sand and mud, and had not changed in the space of eleven, 
