(47) The account of the ‘bore’ is followed by an enumeration of the countries around and beyond Barugaza with which it had commercial relations. Inland are the Aratrioi, Arakhosioi, Gandarioi and the people of Proklaïs, a province wherein is Boukephalos Alexandreia, beyond which is the Baktrian nation. It has been thought by some that by the Aratrioi are meant the Arii, by others that they were the Arâstrâs of Sanskrit called Aratti in the Prakrit, so that the Aratrioi of the Periplûs hold an intermediate place between the Sanskrit and Prakrit form of the name. Müller however says “if you want a people known to the Greeks and Romans as familiarly as the well-known names of the Arakhosii, Gandarii, Peukelitae, you may conjecture that the proper reading is ΔΡΑΝΓΩΝ instead of ΑΡΑΤΡΙΩΝ.” It is an error of course on the part of our author when he places Boukephalos (a city built by Alexander on the banks of the Hydaspês, where he defeated Pôros), in the neighbourhood of Proklaïs, that is Pekhely in the neighbourhood of Peshawar. He makes a still more surprising error when he states that Alexander penetrated to the Ganges.
48. In the same region eastward is a city called Ozênê, formerly the capital wherein the king resided. From it there is brought down to Barugaza every commodity for the supply of the country and for export to our own markets—onyx-stones, porcelain, fine muslins, mallow-coloured muslins, and no small quantity of ordinary cottons. At the same time there is brought down to it from the upper country by way of Proklaïs, for transmission to the coast, Kattybourine, Patropapigic, and Kabalitic spikenard, and another kind which reaches it by way of the adjacent province of Skythia; also kostus and bdellium.
(48) The next place mentioned in the enumeration is Ozênê (Ujjain), which, receiving nard through Proklaïs from the distant regions where it was produced, passed it on to the coast for export to the Western World. This aromatic was a product of three districts, whence its varieties were called respectively the Kattybourine, the Patropapigic and the Kabolitic. What places were indicated by the first two names cannot be ascertained, but the last points undoubtedly to the region round Kâbul, since its inhabitants are called by Ptolemy Kabolitai, and Edrisi uses the term Myrobalanos Kabolinos for the ‘myrobolans of Kâbul.’ Nard, as Edrisi also observes, has its proper soil in Thibet.
49. The imports of Barugaza are—
Οἶνος προηγουμένος Ἰταλικὸς—Wine, principally Italian.
Καὶ Λαοδικηνὸς καὶ Ἀραβικὸς—Laodikean wine and Arabian.
Χαλκος καὶ κασσίτερος καὶ μόλυβδος—Brass or Copper and Tin and Lead.
Κοράλλιον καὶ χρυσόλιθον—Coral and Gold-stone or Yellow-stone.
Ἱματισμὸς ἁπλοῦς καὶ νόθος πανταῖος—Cloth, plain and mixed, of all sorts.
Πολύμιται ζῶναι πηχυαῖαι—Variegated sashes half a yard wide.