A good number of scholars misunderstood the Scythians and their geographical situation which they thought to have covered the east of Europe, and the region of western and central Asia.

According to Ptolemy, all the country along the middle-course of the river Indus was under the control of the Indo-Skythians. Of this Patalene was at the insular portion due to bifurcation of this river; and Abiria region above this was similarly away from the land of the Scythians. The region about the mouth of the Indus and the Gulf of Kanthi was called Syrastrene. The towns of the Indo-Skythia are :Artoarta, Andrapana, Sabana, Banagara, and Kodrana. Other six towns which Ptolemy mentions as Scythian towns but could not be identified by scholars include : Nigranigramma, Antakhara, Soudasanna, Syrnisika, Patistama and Tisapatinga.

Criticising Ptolemy’s knowledge on Scythia, Bunbury remarks that “It must be admitted that Ptolemy’s knowledge of the regions on either side of the Imaos was of the vaguest possible character. Eastward of the Rha, which he regarded as the limit between Asiatic Sarmatia and Skythia, and north of the Iaxartes, which he describes like all previous writers as falling into the Kaspian—-he had, properly speaking, no geographical knowledge whatever. Nothing had reached him beyond the names of tribes reported at second hand, and frequently derived from different authorities, who would apply different appellations to the same tribe, or extend the same name to one or more of the wandering hordes, who were thinly dispersed over this vast extent of territory. Among the names thus accumulated, a compilation that is probably as worthless as that of Pliny, notwithstanding its greater pretensions to geographical accuracy, we find some that undoubtedly represent populations really existing in Ptolemy’s time, such as the Alani, the Aorsi, &., associated with others that were merely poetical or traditional, such as the Abii, Galaktophagi and Hippophagi, while the Issedones, who were placed by Herodotus immediately east of the Tanais, are strangely transferred by Ptolemy to the far east, on the very borders of Serika ; and he has even the name of a town which he calls Issedon Serika, and to which he assigns a position in longitude 22⁰ east of Mount Imaos, and not less than 46⁰ east of Baktra. In one essential point, as has been already pointed out, Ptolemy’s conception of Skythia differed from that of all preceding geographers, that instead of regarding it as bounded on the north and east by the sea, and consequently of comparatively limited extent, he considered it as extending without limit in both directions, and bounded only by ‘ the unknown land’, or in other words, limited only by his own knowledge”. Today Ptolemy is not there to refute Bunbury’ remarks against geographical knowledge on his own land. However, Bunbury’s ideas on Rha, ‘unknown land’, Alani, Issedon, Tanais, Serika, and Imaos is so scanty that he used his position to influence others accepted it that caused immense damage to the history of human civilization; and his writings distorted the whole geographical situation of the ‘inhabited world’.

Homer’s Galakto-phagoi (milk-eaters) and the Hippe-mologoi (mare-milkers) were considered as belonging to the Skythic tribes. But historians did not take into consideration their settlements with respect to geographical situation of Mt Imaos and the river Ganges.

Ptolemy’s division of Skythia into within and beyond Imaos points to Bolor which stands at the boundary between Chin and the Turkistan. This formed the base of the wrong identification of the Scythian lands. Chin’s Han dynasty’s border, and Turkistan’s border is identified with this Bolor which was the land of the Bulis tribes(also a gotta) in Alakappa. It is Bolo-gama of other texts that identifies a place in ancient Magadha situated next to Kasia or Cassia. Both Turkistan and ancient Han settlements were at the foot of Mt Imaos or the Tsung-ling mountain of the pilgrims from Chin. Hiouen Tsiang visited the settlements of Han people who during his time were in problems. Mt Tsung-ling is again the same as Mt Salanga or Sangla where Alexander built his capital city next to ancient Rama-grama on the bank of the river Indus.

According to scholars, ‘Ptolemy placed Imaos too far to the east, 8⁰ further than the meridian of the principal source of the Ganges. The cause of this mistake, as a writer in Smith’s Dictionary points out, arose from the circumstance that the data upon which Ptolemy came to his conclusion were selected from two different sources’.

Scholars who criticise Ptolemy’s knowledge are right when they observe that ‘The Greeks first became acquainted with the Komedorum Montes when they passed the Indian Kaukasos between Kabul and Balkh, and advanced over the plateau of Bamiyan along the west slopes of Bolor, where Alexander found the tribe of Sibae, the descendants of Herakles’. Sibae marks the ancient Sivi country which is again the same as Thebes of the Greeks. This Bolor is different from the other Bolor of Alakappas in Magadha. This identifies the ancient Beluva. 

When it is said that section of Skythia comprised Khiva, the country of the Kosaks, Ferghana, Tashkend, and the parts about the Balkash, it explains the geographical limit and neighbours of the ancient Sivi country, which matches with literary explanations attached to history that sees it as one of the oldest country of the human civilization after Crete, or Cete.  

The rivers mentioned in connexion with Skythia within Imaos are the Oxos, Iaxartes, Rha, Rhymmos, Daix, Iastos and Polytimetos.

According to Strabo, Polytimetos river passed through Sogdiana and was lost in the sands. Curtius described it as entering a cavern and continuing its course underground. According to the Greeks and Persian accounts this is ‘the much-honoured’ river which Ptolemy says it enter the Kaspian, and scholars find fault in this statement.  In reality this Politimetos river identifies the Ptolemais (or Tola) region through which the river Saraswati is flowing through. It marks the region of the ancient Greek settlements.

The mountains enumerated in the Skyth region are the Alans, Rhymmika, Norosson, Aspisia, Tapoura, Syeba, and Anares.

Alana Mountains lay to the east of the Hyperboreans, and the latter is identified with Taprobane only; Alexander’s historians have taken the name of a go/goddess Alani in this region. Ptolemy has committed no mistake by extending the chain of Imaos to higher latitudes. He has not named 38 tribes belonging to this division of Skythia. They are not tribes; he has shown the tribes who were followers of this goddess Alani. This means out of eighty-four or so regions of the ‘inhabited world’, some thirty-eight of them were followers of this Goddess.

Of these the best known are the Alani, but historians made a blunder by identifying the Alanis as belonging to Europe.

Arrian was serving as Governor of Kappadokia under Hadrian; it is said that the Asiatic Alani attacked his province, but were repelled. He subsequently wrote a work which shows that the seats of the Alani were in the north of the Skythia and adjacent o the ‘unknown land’. This means the Scythians were then staying close to ancient Rome, which then was at the ‘end of the earth’ beyond which was the ‘unknown world’. Name of Kappadokia is seen in Pali texts as Kappakondara.

Abioi Skythai were an interesting tribe of the ancient world and their name has entered almost all ancient texts. Similarly the name of Issedon, and this tribe were followers of the deity Issan, one of the ‘Eight Gods’ or Astarte of Jerusalem.

Spartan poet Alkman, Hekataios of Miletos, and Aristeas of Prokonnesos, and many others have taken this name of Issedones. Because Sparta, Miletos and Aristeas are neighbourly to the seat of worship of this deity in Ottorrokorha(Uttara Kuru) of Ptolemy.

Sinthu the greatest of all rivers of the ancient world flows the coast district of the Scythians.  And it flows into the Erythraens Sea which marks the Periplus region. And there is no problem in identifying this Erythraean Sea as Eratosthenes was a native to this region and has given us maps to identify this sea. Indian puranas know this sea through ‘Pariplaba’.  Erythraean is same as Arithapur of Pali literature that identifies the ancient Sivi country with its.

As someone approaches this country through sea routes, one meets the Plain of Serpent, which Persians called grace, means ‘Daya’, or ‘Sarada’. This is name of a river, and it is said that it had seven mouths, and only its middle mouth was navigable. Barbaricum was its market town. In the inland before this was the metropolis of Scathya, Minnagara, which was then under the Parthian princes.

Tanais river( also Dan or Don river) separated the eastern Persia from the land of the Scythians. In the Persian side of this river was Gaga(or Gaza) and Kyro-polis which were captured by Alexander. Previously they were under Cyrus(Kuru). Alexander crossed  the river and inflicted a defeat on the Scythians. He drove them towards the boundary-stones of Father Bacchus(Mt Imaos).

Ptolemy assigns for the Indo-Skythia, a vast region which comprised all the countries traversed by the Indus, from where it is joined by the river of Kabul onward to the ocean.