194:152 The passage occurs in the Váyu and Márkańd́eya Puráńas, as well as in the Mahábhárata; but the purport is not very distinct, and the proper reading is doubtful. p. 195 In three MSS. of the latter it occurs ### the latter páda is the same in all: the former, is ### in a fourth copy, in two copies of the Váyu it is ###. None of these are intelligible, and the Márkańd́eya furnishes the reading followed, Modern geographers have supposed the Cathæi, Cathari, and Chatriæi of the ancients, in the lower parts of the Punjab, to mean a people of Kshatriyas; but no such people occur directly named in our lists. Considering that the text is speaking of barbarous and foreign tribes, perhaps no particular nation is here meant, and it may be intended as an epithet of those which follow, or of Vaiśya (agricultural) and Śúdra (servile or low) tribes, living either near to, or after the manner of Kshatriyas: in that case a better reading would be, ###. According to Manu, various northern tribes, the Śakas, Kámbojas, Páradas, Pahlavas, Kirátas, Daradas, and Khasas, and even the Chinas and Yavanas, are degraded Kshatriyas, in consequence of neglecting religious rites. X. 43, 44. According to the Pauráńik legend they were overcome in war by Sagara, and degraded from their original caste. See book IV.

195:153 Here we have a people called Śúdras by all the authorities, and placed in the west or north-west, towards the Indus. They have been ingeniously, and with probability, conjectured by Mr. Lassen to be the Oxydracæ; for Śúdraka is equally correct with Śúdra; and in place of Ὀξυδράκαι various MSS. of Strabo, as quoted by Siebenkees, read Σιδράκαι and Συδράκαι: the latter is precisely the Sanscrit appellation. Pliny also has Sudraci for the people who formed the limit of Alexander's eastern conquests, or those hitherto inaccurately called Oxydracæ.

195:154 These are always conjoined with the Śúdras, as if conterminous. Their situation is no doubt correctly indicated by Ptolemy by the position of Abiria above Pattalene on the Indus.

195:155 The Durds are still where they were at the date of our text, and in the days of Strabo and Ptolemy; not exactly, indeed, at the sources of the Indus, but along its course, above the Himálaya, just before it descends to India; a position which might well be taken for its head.

195:156 Also read Paśus, 'brutes.' If the term might be altered to Palli, it would imply 'village or pastoral tribes.'