"The languages spoken from Kashmir
in the east to Kafiristan in the west are neither of Indian nor of Iranian
origin, but form a third branch of the Aryan stock of the great
Indo-European language family. Among the languages of this branch, now
rightly designated as 'Dardic,' the Kafir group holds a very prominent
place. In the Kafir group again we find the Pashai language spoken over a
very considerable area. The map accompanying Sir George Grierson's
monograph on 'The Pisaca Languages of North-Western India' [Asiatic Society
Monographs, VIII., 1906], shows Pashai as the language spoken along the
right bank of the Kunar river as far as the Asmar tract as well as in the
side valleys which from the north descend towards it and the Kabul river
further west. This important fact makes it certain that the tribal
designation of Pashai, to which this Kafir language owes its name, has to
this day an application extending much further east than was indicated by
the references which travellers, mediaeval and modern, along the Panjshir
route have made to the Pashais and from which alone this ethnic name was
previously known."
Stein comes to the conclusion that "the Mongols' route led across the
Mandal Pass into the great Kafir valley of Bashgol and thus down to
Arnawai on the Kunar. Thence Dir could be gained directly across the
Zakhanna Pass, a single day's march. There were alternative routes, too,
available to the same destination either by ascending the Kunar to Ashreth
and taking the present 'Chitral Road' across the Lowarai, or descending
the river to Asmar and crossing the Binshi Pass."
From Dir towards Kashmir for a large body of horsemen "the easiest and in
matter of time nearest route must have led them as now down the Panjkora
Valley and beyond through the open tracts of Lower Swat and Buner to the
Indus about Amb. From there it was easy through the open northern part of
the present Hazara District (the ancient Urasa) to gain the valley of the
Jhelam River at its sharp bend near Muzzaffarabad."
The name of Agror (the direct phonetic derivative of the Sanskrit
Atyugrapura) = Ariora; it is the name of the hill-tract on the Hazara
border which faces Buner on the east from across the left bank of the
Indus.
XVIII., p. 101.
Line 17, Note 4. Korano of the Indo-Scythic Coins is to be read
Kosano. (PELLIOT.)
XVIII., p. 102.
On the Mongols of Afghanistan, see RAMSTEDT, Mogholica, in Journ. de la
Soc. Finno-Ougrienne, XXIII., 1905. (PELLIOT.)
XIX., p. 107. "The King is called RUOMEDAN AHOMET."
About 1060, Mohammed I. Dirhem Kub, from Yemen, became master of Hormuz,
but his successors remained in the dependency of the sovereigns of Kerman
until 1249, when Rokn ed-Din Mahmud III.
