1892.] H. Gh Raverfcy— The Mihran of Sind and its Tributaries. 481 
have gone to ruin in consequence ; for then, instead of the river flowing 
about a mile or mile and a half east of that city, if ice go by the present 
channel of the Ab-i-Sind or Indus , it had only left it to pass four miles 
and a half on its west; for the river is now only six miles from the 
ancient channel, and water could have been conducted to it without 
difficulty. 669 There can be no doubt, therefore, that the diverted channel 
must have taken a course much farther west of Aror than at present, 
and probably ran towards the depression called the Sind Hollow, 560 or 
certainly into some other channel to the north and west of where Shikar- 
pur now stands, before it bent towards the south again, and entered 
the then channel of the Ab-i-Sind or Indus, between Rurhi and 
Sill wan of the present day. 66i 
669 After the branch of the river had been diverted, according to the tradition, 
Dilu Ra’e directed his people to turn the river into its old channel, but it could not 
be done. If the face of the country had been then as now, and the river as close 
as at present, this could easily have been effected—and, in fact, it has recently 
been done — for now the bed of the Indus is twenty feet higher than the bed of the 
old river. See following note 562. 
660 Hughes, in his u Gazetteer of Sind” says (p. 770): “ The Jacobabad and 
Briggs wah canals in Kashmor taluka were formerly used oliiefly to fill what is 
called “ the Sind Hollow,” an old bed of the Indus traversing the Kashmor and 
Thul talukas. # * * They are now closed up. The tract between the Sind 
Hollow and the river Indus is much cut up with dliands (flood hollows) and dhoros 
(old river channels).” See the extract from Dr. Kennedy’s work given in note 311, 
page 311. 
561 See page 457. A short time after the Istakharfs aocount, just referred to, 
we find the Masalik wa Mamalik giving the names of three great rivers, the Mihran, 
the Sind Rud, that is what was also called the Panch Nad, three days’ journey from 
Multan, and the Jand Rud or Samand Rud, which that work states united with the 
Mihran Rud, that is the Ab-i-Sind (see notes 304, page 305, and 548, page 475), 
below the junction of the Sind Rud ; and that Basmid or Samid, Jandur, and Multan, 
are all on the east side of the Rud-i-Multan, which Ibn Haukal calls the Mihran Rud 
(the Ab-i-Sind), and all three places are said to be each one farsatdi or league from 
the river Mihran (the Ab-i-Sind). Ibn Haukal says more, namely, that the junction 
of the Mihran Rud (Ab-i-Sind) and Sind Rud (Panch Nad) takes place below Multan 
and above Basmid, and yet, soon after says, that Basmid has two walls, one on each 
side of the Mihran (Ab-i-Sind), from which, just before he said it was a farsak& 
distant. I believe Grhsus-pur to stand on or near the site of Bastnid. 
Bu-Rihan, whose account follows the above-mentioned works after an interval 
of between eighty and ninety years he finished his work in 42ii H. (1031 A.D.), 
but he never passed farther east or south than Lahor and Multan — says, that “ Alor 
or Aror is situated on the Mihran, which passes on the icest of that town,” If this 
is correct, it shows that when he wrote, the western branch of the Hakpa had then 
been diverted from Aror, for before that event happened, the river passed it on the 
east. The word ‘ west,’ I may mention, is not contained in the recently printed 
text of Bu-Riljau’s work. 
J. 3 
