Mandal.—Kíraj.

It is difficult to fix the position of Mandal, one of the places to which Junaid despatched an expedition.

The name of Mandal, or Mandalam, being applied generally to signify “a region,” in Sanskrit, adds to our doubts upon this occasion. Thus we have Tonda-Mandalam, Pándú-Mandalam, Chola-Man-dalam, and many others. [Almost, or entirely, all of them being situated in the South.] The most noted Mandal of the Arab geo­graphers was that whence Mandalí aloe-wood was derived; hence agallochum was frequently called “Mandal;” but no one seems to have known where it was situated. Kazwíní says no one can penetrate to it, because it lies beyond the equinoctial line: but he calls it a city of India, taking that word in its enlarged sense of East Indies. [The Marásidu-l Ittilá' calls it a city of Hind, but gives no indication of its locality. Abú-l Fidá has no notice of it.] Avicenna, in his Kánún, says that, according to some, it is in the middle of the land of Hind. The place here alluded to, is probably the coast of Coromandel, whence the agallochum, brought from the eastern islands, was distributed to the marts and countries of the west.

Avicenna's description might be made to apply to Mandala upon the Nerbadda, which in the second century of our era was the seat of the Haihaya dynasty of Gondwána;* but this is, of course, too far for any Arab expedition, notwithstanding that M. Reinaud considers Ujjain and Málwa* to have been attacked at the same period, under the orders of Junaid (p. 126). But Málabár would have been a more probable object of attack than Málwa, in the heart of India. As we proceed, we shall find other expeditions almost all directed to different points in the Guzerát peninsula,—as, indeed, was the case, even from the time of the conquest of Sind, when the inhabitants of Basra were engaged in a warfare with the Meds of Suráshtra.

It is evident that we must seek, also, no very distant site for Mandal. Even Mandal-eswara (Mandlaisar), on the Nerbadda, would be too remote. Mandor in Rájpútána, the ancient capital of the Parihárs, or Mandra in Kachh, or Mandal in Jhaláwár, would be better, or the famous Mandaví, had not its ancient site been known by another name,—Ráen. Altogether, Mandal in Guzerát, better known as Oká-Mandal, offers, from its antiquity and its position as the western district of that peninsula, the most probable site for the Mandal of Junaid.

From the expression of the historian Tabarí, that the Arabs never recovered possession of Kíraj and Mandal, there would seem to be an implication that these places lay beyond the province of Sind, and that they were at no great distance from one another. They are also mentioned together in the passage under consideration. The “Kíraj” of Tabarí and the Futúhu-l Buldán seems to be the same place as the “Kaj” of Birúní. The name occurs again as “Kíraj” and “Kúraj” in the Chach-náma (pp. 189, 197), and was probably situate in, if not named from, Kachh, though the exact site of the town cannot now be established.

The position of Oká-Mandal on the opposite coast is a sufficient reason why it should be mentioned in connection with Kíraj, sup­posing that place to have been in Kachh; and, in the absence of more certain information, I should, for this, as well as the other reasons above given, feel disposed to consider it as the Mandal noticed by the Arab historians of the Sindian conquest.*