Note 209 — Chapter IX · —Description of India

This river is most probably that which is called the Doanas in Ptolemy’s Geography, where it designates the Brahmaputra. The Doanas was probably also the Oidanes of Artemidôros, who, according to Strabo (XI. i. 72), described it as a river that bred crocodiles and dolphins, and that flowed into the Ganges. If the first two letters in Doanas be transposed, we get almost letter for letter the Oidanes of Artemidôros, and we get it again, though not so closely, if we discard r from the Dyardanes of Curtius. That these two writers had the same river in view is confirmed by their mentioning the very same animals as bred in its waters.