Note 207 — LECTURE V.

Sîlamâvatî does not occur again in the Rig-Veda. Muir translates, "rich in plants;" Zimmer, "rich in water;" Ludwig takes it as a proper name. Sâyana states that sîlamâ is a plant which is made into ropes. That the meaning of sîlamâvatî was forgotten at an early time we see by the Atharva-Veda III. 12, 2, substituting sûnritâvatî, for sîlamâvatî, as preserved in the Sânkhâyana Grihya-sûtras, 3, 3. I think sîlamâ means straw, from whatever plant it may be taken, and this would be equally applicable to a sâla, a house, a sthûna, a post, and to the river Indus. It may have been, as Ludwig conjectures, an old local name, and in that case it may possibly account for the name given in later times to the Suleiman range.