+Ariakê+ (Aparântikâ), our author informs us, was the beginning or frontier of India. That part of the interior of Ariakê which bordered on Skythia was called +Aberia+ or Abiria (in the MS. erroneously Ibêria). The corresponding Indian word is +Abhira+, which designated the district near the mouths of the river. Having been even in very early times a great seat of commerce, some (as Lassen) have been led to think from a certain similarity of the names that this was the +Ophir+ of scripture, a view opposed by Ritter. Abiria is mentioned by Ptolemy, who took it to be not a part of India but of Indoskythia. The sea-board of Ariakê was called +Surastrênê+, and is mentioned by Ptolemy, who says (VII. i. 55) it was the region about the mouths of the Indus and the Gulf of Kanthi. It answers to the Sanskrit +Surâshṭra+. Its capital was Minnagar,—a city which, as its name shows, had once belonged to the Min or Skythians. It was different of course from the Minnagar already mentioned as the capital of Indo-Skythia. It was situated to the south of +Ozênê+ (Ujjayinî, or Ujjain), and on the road which led from that city to the River Narmadâ, probably near where Indôr now stands. It must have been the capital only for a short time, as Ptolemy informs us (II. i. 63) that +Ozênê+ was in his time the capital of +Tiashanes+ [probably the Chashṭana of Coins and the Cave Temple inscriptions]. From both places a great variety of merchandise was sent down the Narmadâ to Barugaza.
The next place our author mentions is a promontory called +Papikê+ projecting into the Gulf of Khambât from that part of the peninsula of Gujarât which lies opposite to the Barugaza coast. Its distance from Barbarikon on the middle mouth of the Indus is correctly given at 3,000 stadia. This promontory is said to be near +Astakapra+, a place which is mentioned also by Ptolemy, and which (_Ind. Ant._ vol. V. p. 314) has been identified by Colonel Yule with +Hastakavapra+ (now +Hâthab+ near Bhaunagar), a name which occurs in a copper-plate grant of Dhruvasena I of Valabhi. With regard to the Greek form of this name Dr. Bühler thinks it is not derived immediately from the Sanskrit, but from an intermediate old Prakrit word Hastakampra, which had been formed by the contraction of the syllables _ava_ to _â_, and the insertion of a nasal, according to the habits of the Gujarâtîs. The loss of the initial, he adds, may be explained by the difficulty which Gujarâtîs have now and probably had 1,600 years ago in pronouncing the spirans in its proper place. The modern name Hâthab or Hâthap may be a corruption of the shorter Sanskrit form Hastavapra.