1892.] H. G. Raverty— The Mihran of Sind and its Tributaries. 505 
Ab, 686 without the Sindhu, Ab-i-Sind, or Indus being included as it had 
hitherto been ; and such was the general state of these rivers as known 
to Abu-1-Fazl when he wrote the A’in-i-Akbari, but this formation of 
the Gh&rali had taken place nearly a century before he finished his 
work; for when Mirza Shah Husain, the son of Shah Beg Khan, the 
Arghun Mughal, overcame the Langah Jat ruler of Multan in 931 H. 
(1525 A.D.), he made the Gharah the boundary between their respec¬ 
tive territories. 
By this fresh movement in the courses of the rivers, I/chohh was 
removed from the Bist Jalhandar Do-abah into the tract known as 
Berun-i-Panch Nad, that is, outside the Five Rivers. The united 
streams flowing in one channel under the name of Panch Nad or Panj 
Ab for about eighteen or twenty miles, or much more, allowing for the 
windings, and subject to minor changes more or less every year, united 
with the Sindhu, Ab-i-Sind, or Indus a little below Sit-pur and 
ITchohh; and by this junction the Panch Nad then extended almost 
as far above Gchchh as the Panch Nad of the present day extends in 
the opposite direction below that place. 686 
Such was the general state of the rivers, as here described, up to 
about ten years before the close of the last century, or just one hundred 
years since. 
The fifth, and so far, last great transition, up to the present 
time, 587 began towards the close of the last century, when the Biah, 
at last, deserted its ancient channel for the first time since it is heard 
of in history ; and this was occasioned, apparently, through the Sutlaj 
again altering its course still farther westwards. On issuing from the 
hills of the Siwalikh, instead of passing close to Ludhianah, it left it 
between seven and eight miles on the north by Fi-lur and ’All Wal 
(the scene of General Sir Harry Smith’s brilliant victory over the 
Sikhs), and from thence keeping to the northwards of west, united 
with the Biah at Hari ke Patan, or Hari’s Ford, some fifteen or sixteen 
miles farther west than before. On this the Biah deserted its channel, 
and instead of inclining westwards—as all the other rivers had more 
or less done, but the Sutlaj to the greatest extent—it took a totally 
contrary direction to the east , deserting the channel it had flowed in for 
635 This was the first occasion that any of the waters of the Sutlaj formed part 
of the Panch Nad or Panj Ab, except, when as a tributary of the Hakra, it united 
with that river lower down near Khan-pur and Khair Garh, and it had never reached 
BO far west before, u within the range of history. 
636 See page 302. 
687 The earthquake of 1819 appears to have caused considerable change near 
the sea coast, but whether its effects were felt more towards the north it is im¬ 
possible to say, as there are no particulars available. 
M. 3 
