171:13 The text applies the latter name so variously as to cause confusion: it is given to one of the four buttresses of Meru, that on the south; to one of the filament mountains, on the west; to a range of boundary mountains, on the south; and to the Varsha of Ketumála: here another mountain range is intended, or a chain running north and south, upon the east of Ilávrita, connecting the Níla and Nishadha ranges. Accordingly the Váyu states it to be 34000 Yojanas in extent; that is, the diameter of Meru 16000, and the breadth of Ilávrita on each side of it, or together 18000. A similar range, that of Mályaván, bounds Ilávrita on the west. It was probably to avoid the confusion arising from similarity of. nomenclature, that the author of the Bhágavata substituted different names for Gandhamádana in the other instances, calling the buttress, as we have seen, Merumandara; the southern forest, Sarvatobhadra; and the filament mountain, Hansa; restricting the term Gandhamádana to the eastern range: a correction, it may be remarked, corroborative of a subsequent date.

172:14 These eight mountains are similarly enumerated in the Bhágavata and Váyu, but no mention is made in them of any seas, and it is clear that the eastern and western oceans cannot be intended, as the mountains Mályavat and Gandhamádana intervene. The commentator would seem to understand 'Arńava' as signifying 'mountain,' as he says between the seas means within Mályavat and Gandhamádana; The Bhágavata describes these eight mountains as circling Meru for 18000 Yojanas in each direction, leaving, according to the commentator, an interval of a thousand Yojanas between them and the base of the central mountain, and being 2000 high, and as many broad: they may be understood to be the exterior barriers of Meru, separating it from Ilávritta. The names of these mountains, according to the Bhágavata, are Jat́hara and Devakút́a on the east, Pavana and Parípátra on the west, Triśringa and Makara on the north, and Kailása and Karavíra on the south. Without believing it possible to verify the position of these different creations of the legendary geography of the Hindus, it can scarcely admit of doubt that the scheme was suggested by imperfect acquaintance with the actual character of the country, by the four great ranges, the Altai, Muztag or Thian-shan, Ku-en-nun, and Himálaya, which traverse central Asia in a direction from east to west, with a greater or less inclination from north to south, which are connected or divided by many lofty transverse ridges, which enclose several large lakes, and which give rise to the great rivers that water Siberia, China, Tartary, and Hindustan. (Humboldt on the mountains of Central Asia, and Ritter. Geogr. Asia.)