part of Asia: Eugene Burnouf is probably
correct in identifying it with the Nessea of Strabo and of
Ptolemy, which lay to the south of Margiana, at the junction
of the roads leading to Hyrcania in one direction and
Bactriana in the other.

From this point forwards, the countries mentioned by their chroniclers
are divided into two groups, lying in opposite directions: Arahvaiti,
Haetumant, and Haptahindu* on the east; and on the west, Urva,** Haroyu
or Haraeva is the Greek Aria, the modern province of Herat.

* Arahvaiti, the Harauvatish of the Achsemenian
inscriptions, is the Greek Arachosia, and Haetumant the
basin of their Etymander, the modern Helmend; in other
words, the present province of Seistan. Hapta-Hindu is the
western part of the Indian continent, i.e. the Punjaub.

** The Pehlevi commentators identify Urva with Mesone,
mentioned by classical writers, at the confluence of the
Tigris and Euphrates, or perhaps the plain around Ispahan
which bore the name of Masan in the Sassanid period. Fr.
Lenormant had connected it with the name Urivzan, which is
applied in the Assyrian inscriptions to a district of Media
in the time of Tiglath-pileser III.

[Illustration: 274.jpg MAP OF THE LANDS CREATED BY AHURA-MAZDA]

The Pehlevi commentators identify Vaekereta with Kabulistan, and also
volunteer the following interpretation of the title which accompanies
the name: "The shadow of the trees there is injurious to the body, or
as some say, the shadow of the mountains," and it produces fever
there. Arguing from passages of similar construction, Lassen was led to
recognise in the epithet _duzhako-shayanem_ a place-name, "inhabitant of
Duzhako," which he identified with a ruined city in this neighbourhood
called Dushak; Haug believed he had found a confirmation of this
hypothesis in the fact that the Pairika Khnathaiti created there by
Angro-mainyus recalls in sound, at any rate, the name of the people
Parikani mentioned by classical writers, as inhabiting these regions.
Khnenta-Vehrkana,* Bhaga,** and Chakhra,*** as far as the districts of
Varena**** and the basin of the Upper Tigris.^ This legend was composed
long after the event, in order to explain in the first place the
relationship between the two great families into which the Oriental
Aryans were divided, viz. the Indian and Iranian, and in the second
to account for the peopling by the