geography-of-iran

"“in the denomination of Ariana, which became known to the Greeks after the Macedonian conquest of the eastern territories of the old Persian empire, there was obviously reflected a tradition that located the Aryan region in the central-southern part of eastern Iran, roughly from the Hindukus southwards, and that considered some of the Medes and the Persians in the west and some of the Bactrians and Sogdians in the north as further extensions of those people who were henceforth known by the name of Ariani. And this, to tell the truth, fits nicely into the picture we have been trying to piece so far. Here too, as in the passages of the Avesta we have studied from the Mihr Yast and the Zamyad Yast, the geographical horizon is central-eastern and southeastern; the northern lands are also completely peripheral, and Chorasmia, which is present only in the very peculiar position of which we have spoken in the Mihr Yast, is not included.” ..."

"[Likewise, in later Greek tradition, Ariane] “is the Greek name which doubtless reflects an older Iranian tradition that designated with an equivalent form the regions of eastern Iran lying mostly south, and not north, of the Hindukus. It is clear how important this information is in our research as a whole.” ..."

"Hiuen Tsang considered the script which was in use in Makran to be 'much the same as India', but the spoken language 'differed a little from that of India.'"

"Even Makran remained independent with varying degrees of freedom commensurate with the intensity of resistance so that as late as 1290 Marco Polo speaks of the eastern part of Makran as part of Hind, and as “the last Kingdom of India as you go towards the west and northwest”."

"Further evidence in the Chachnama makes perfectly clear that many areas of Makran as of Sindh had a largely Buddhist population. When Chach marched to Armabil, this town is described as having been in the hands of a Buddhist Samani (Samani Budda), a descendent of the agents of Rai Sahiras who had been elevated for their loyalty and devotion, but who later made themselves independent. The Buddhist chief offered his alligience to Chach when the latter was on his way to Kirman in 631. The same chiefdom of Armadil is referred to by Huen Tsang 0-Tien -p-o-chi-lo, located at the high road running through Makran, and he also describes it as predominantly Buddhist, thinly populated though it was, it had no less than 80 Buddhist convents with about 5000 monks. In effect at eighteen km north west of Las Bela at Gandakahar, near the ruins of an ancient town are the caves of Gondrani, and as their constructions show these caves were undoubtedly Buddhist. Traveling through the Kij valley further west (then under the government of Persia) Huien Tsang saw some 100 Buddhist monasteries and 6000 priests. He also saw several hundred Deva temples in this part of Makran, and in the town of Su-nu li-chi-shi-fa-lo-which is probably Qasrqand- he saw a temple of Maheshvara Deva, richly adorned and sculptured. There is thus very wide extension of Indian cultural forms in Makran in the seventh century, even in the period when it fell under Persian sovereignty. By comparison in more recent times the last place of Hindu pilgrimage in Makran was Hinglaj, 256 km west of present day Karachi in Las Bela."

"Makran, ‘the frontier of al-Hind’ in the early Arab conquest (futuh) literature, is identified by the geographers of the ninth to twelfth cen­turies as the territory extending ‘about fifteen days travelling from Tlz to Qusdar in the district of Turan’. The geographers commonly use the term al-Hind to denote the regions east of the Indus, while including Makran in as-Sind. The historian Tabari took Makran to be a separate region between the Persian province of Kirman on one side and al-Hind on the other: ‘ . . . the region of Makran . . . is situated beyond Kirm­an and Fars, between the kingdoms of Sind and Hind . . . and cUman. . . ; Makran borders on Kirman and Hind, (while) the sea separates it from cUman’. It is equally common, however, even in the geograph­ical literature, to find Sind conflated with al-Hind in a single term. And since the Makran coast was the westernmost portion of Sind, or a west­ ern dependency of Sind, it is then found that al-Hind (‘India’) is not just the country east of the Indus but includes Makran, starting from Tlz. Al-Biruni thus says that ‘the coast (sahil) of al-Hind begins with Tiz, the capital (qa?ba) of Makran, and from there extends in a south­ eastern direction towards the region of Debal (ad-daybal).. These various statements from the Arabic sources show that Makran was effectually regarded as a frontier zone, but yet as distinctly Indian territory. And this is conform to the view which has been current in anti­quity - when Makran was known as Gedrosia - and down to com­paratively recent times. Pliny the Elder for instance writes in the first century A.D. that ‘the river Indus . . . is the western boundary of India {ad Indum amnem qui est ab occidente finis Indiae)’, but adds: ‘in fact, most authorities do not put the western frontier at the river Indus but include four satrapies, (those of) the Gedrosi (Makran), Arachotae (Qandahar), Arii (Herat), and Parapanisidae (Kabul), with the river Kabul as the final boundary..’ In the sixth century the Nestorian Patriarch Jesujabus considered India to begin from the coast of Persia, i.e. from Fars, about the Persian Gulf. Medieval European literature introduced a tripartite division of India: ‘India Major’, which extended from Malabar to the east; ‘India Minor’, adjoining Persia and embracing Sind and Makran; and ‘India Tertia’ which was Zanzibar. Nicolo de Conti, in the fifteenth century, similarly divided India in three parts: one, from Persia to the Indus (Makran and Sind); a second, from the Indus to the Ganges; and a third, beyond the Ganges. And Marco Polo, in 1290, speaks of the eastern part of Makran - which he calls Kij-Makran after its main inland town - as ‘the last kingdom in India as you go towards the west and north-west’, a kingdom which at that time claimed an independent status, probably under a Muslim ruler."

"Now scantier limits the proud arch confine, And scarce are seen the prostrate Nile or Rhine; A small Euphrates thro' the piece is roll'd, And little eagles wave their wings in gold."

"All the superior religions had their growth between the and the Euphrates."

"To the right is Manda ḏ-Hiia; he has erected a throne for Yušamin at the mouth of the Fraš-Ziwa (Euphrates)."

"In those ancient days, when the good destinies had been decreed, and after An and Enlil had set up the divine rules of heaven and earth, then ... Enki, the master of destinies, ... founded dwelling places; he took in his hand waters to encourage and create good seed; he laid out side by side the Tigris and the Euphrates, and caused them to bring water from the mountains; he scoured out the smaller streams, and positioned the other watercourses."

"The heavens were separated from the earth, … my father Enlil created me in a single day, and then the Tigris charged like a great wild bull."

"Tigris! Torrent of four thousand years, Millions, men of war sucking at your strength, Living in holes at your side, Agape as you broke bridges, sent ferrymen adrift! How many armies sought to cross you here, How muezzins lived and died, call’d to prayer; Yet you seemed aloof to all their striving, Your ripples looked indifferent to their stares, Their drinking, marching, gravities."

"Every object and being in the universe is a jar overflowing with wisdom and beauty, a drop of the Tigris that cannot be contained by any skin. Every jarful spills and makes the earth more shining, as though covered in satin."

"By hand Enten guided the spring floods, the abundance and life of the Land, down from the edge of the hills. He set his foot upon the Tigris and Euphrates like a big bull and released them into the fields and fruitful acres of Enlil. He shaped lagoons in the water of the sea. He let fish and birds together come into existence by the sea."

"After day had broken and Utu had risen, the of the Land lifted his head high. The king combined the Tigris with the Euphrates. He combined the Euphrates with the Tigris. Large vessels were placed in the open air, and he stood small vessels beside them, like lambs lying on the grass."

"All those who have done odious deeds will be seated here into the stocks, until the Euphrates dries up at its mouth and the Tigris changes its course, until all the seas dry up and all the rivers, brooks and springs have overflowed."

"In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates."

"My guides, sniffing the air like dogs, led me from crumbling room to room, saying, 'This is jessamine, this violet, this rose'. But at last Dahoum drew me: 'Come and smell the very sweetest scent of all', and we went into the main lodging, to the gaping window sockets of its eastern face, and there drank with open mouths of the effortless, empty, eddyless wind of the desert, throbbing past. That slow breath had been born somewhere beyond the distant Euphrates and had dragged its way across many days and nights of dead grass, to its first obstacle, the man-made walls of our broken palace."