[1615.—"To the Right Honourable Sir Thomas Roe ... these in Zuratt."—Foster, Letters, iii. 196.]
1638.—"Within a League of the Road we entred into the River upon which Surat is seated, and which hath on both sides a very fertile soil, and many fair gardens, with pleasant Country-houses, which being all white, a colour which it seems the Indians are much in love with, afford a noble prospect amidst the greenness whereby they are encompassed. But the River, which is the Tapte ... is so shallow at the mouth of it, that Barks of 70 or 80 Tun can hardly come into it."—Mandelslo, p. 12.
1690.—"Suratt is reckon'd the most fam'd Emporium of the Indian Empire, where all Commodities are vendible.... And the River is very commodious for the Importation of Foreign Goods, which are brought up to the City in Hoys and Yachts, and Country Boats."—Ovington, 218.
1779.—"There is some report that he (Gen. Goddard) is gone to Bender-Souret ... but the truth of this God knows."—Seir Mutaq. iii. 328.
SURATH, more properly Sōrath, and Sōreth, n.p. This name is the legitimate modern form and representative of the ancient Indian Saurāshṭra and Greek Syrastrēnē, names which applied to what we now call the Kattywar Peninsula, but especially to the fertile plains on the sea-coast. ["Suráshṭra, the land of the Sus, afterwards Sanskritized into Sauráshṭra the Goodly Land, preserves its name in Sorath the southern part of Káthiáváḍa. The name appears as Suráshṭra in the Mahábhárata and Pánini's Gaṇapátha, in Rudradáman's (A.D. 150) and Skandagupta's (A.D. 456) Girnár inscriptions, and in several Valabhi copper-plates. Its Prákrit form appears as Suraṭha in the Násik inscription of Gotamiputra (A.D. 150) and in later Prákrit as Suraṭhṭha in the Tirthakalpa of Jinapra-bhásuri of the 13th or 14th century. Its earliest foreign mention is perhaps Strabo's Saraostus and Pliny's Oratura" (Bombay Gazetteer, i. pt. i. 6)]. The remarkable discovery of one of the great inscriptions of Aśoka (B.C. 250) on a rock at Girnār, near Junāgarh in Saurāshtra, shows that the dominion of that great sovereign, whose capital was at Pataliputra (Παλιμβόθρα) or [Patna], extended to this distant shore. The application of the modern form Sūrath or Sōrath has varied in extent. It is now the name of one of the four prānts or districts into which the peninsula is divided for political purposes, each of these prānts containing a number of small States, and being partly managed, partly controlled by a Political Assistant. Sorath occupies the south-western portion, embracing an area of 5,220 sq. miles.
c. A.D. 80-90.—"Ταύτης τὰ μὲν μεσόγεια τῇ Σκυθίᾳ συνορίζοντα Ἀβιρία καλεῖται, τὰ δὲ παραθαλάσσια Συραστρήνη."—Periplus, § 41.
c. 150.—
"Συραστρηνῆς, * * *
Βαρδάξημα πόλις ...
Συράστρα κώμη ...