Note 175 — THIRD VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS.
Richard Henry Major translation
A misspelling, not infrequent in those days, for the sacred city (not island) of Odjein or Ougein in Malwa, whence the Indians reckoned their first meridian. The change of the name to Arin in Arabic is thus explained by M. Reinaud in his Mémoire sur l’Inde, p. 373. The dj of the Indians was sometimes rendered z by the Arabs, and thus the Arab translators wrote the word Ozein; but as in manuscripts the vowels were often omitted, the mass of readers to whom the name of Odjein was indifferent, would pronounce it Azin, and as the copyist would sometimes forget to insert the point which distinguished a z from an r, Azin would be read Arin.