From Sir George Grierson’s Linguistic Survey of India we learn that to the south of the range of the Hindukush “the languages spoken from Kashmir in the east to Kafiristan in the west are neither of Indian nor of Iranian origin, but form a third branch of the Aryan stock of the great Indo-European language family. Among the languages of this branch, now rightly designated as ‘Dardic,’ the Kafir group holds a very prominent place. In the Kafir group again we find the Pashai language spoken over a very considerable area. The map accompanying Sir George Grierson’s monograph on ‘The Pisaca Languages of North-Western India’ [Asiatic Society Monographs, VIII., 1906], shows Pashai as the language spoken along the right bank of the Kunar river as far as the Asmar tract as well as in the side valleys which from the north descend towards it and the Kabul river further west. This important fact makes it certain that the tribal designation of Pashai, to which this Kafir language owes its name, has to this day an application extending much further east than was indicated by the references which travellers, mediæval and modern, along the Panjshir route have made to the Pashais and from which alone this ethnic name was previously known.”
Stein comes to the conclusion that “the Mongols’ route led across the Mandal Pass into the great Kafir valley of Bashgol and thus down to Arnawai on the Kunar. Thence Dir could be gained directly across the Zakhanna Pass, a single day’s march. There were alternative routes, too, available to the same destination either by ascending the Kunar to Ashreth and taking the present ‘Chitral Road’ across the Lowarai, or descending the river to Asmar and crossing the Binshi Pass.”
From Dir towards Kashmir for a large body of horsemen “the easiest and in matter of time nearest route must have led them as now down the Panjkora Valley and beyond through the open tracts of Lower Swāt and Buner to the Indus about Amb. From there it was easy through the open northern part of the present Hazara District (the ancient Urasa) to gain the valley of the Jhelam River at its sharp bend near Muzzaffarabad.”
The name of Agror (the direct phonetic derivative of the Sanskrit Atyugrapura) = Ariora; it is the name of the hill-tract on the Hazara border which faces Buner on the east from across the left bank of the Indus.
XVIII., p. 101.
Line 17, Note 4. Korano of the Indo-Scythic Coins is to be read Košano. (Pelliot.)
XVIII., p. 102.
On the Mongols of Afghanistān, see Ramstedt, Mogholica, in Journ. de la Soc. Finno-Ougrienne, XXIII., 1905. (Pelliot.)
XIX., p. 107. “The King is called Ruomedan Ahomet.”
About 1060, Mohammed I. Dirhem Kub, from Yemen, became master of Hormuz, but his successors remained in the dependency of the sovereigns of Kermán until 1249, when Rokn ed-Din Mahmud III. Kalhaty (1242–1277) became independent. His successors in Polo’s time were Seïf ed-Din Nusrat (1277–1290), Mas’ud (1290–1293), Beha ed-Din Ayaz Seyfin (1293–1311).