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0460	Innermost Asia : vol.2
極奥アジア : vol.2

paring the huge volume of the Helmand in flood with the very limited flow that it carries in the late
summer and autumn, a competent judge considers this time-honoured method of creating a tem-
porary main distributary head as that best suited to the hydrographic conditions and the nature of
the ground in the delta. If under efficient administration the 'duty' of the water received from
the Helmand were raised to the level attained in Egypt and parts of India, works of the Band-i-
Sīstān type might well suffice to secure irrigation for all the cultivable soil in the delta.

Haêtumant, I have thought it desirable briefly to point out here the paramount importance of such weirs
ancient on the Helmand for agricultural life in Sīstān, not merely on account of its close bearing upon the
name of
river. historical past of the land, but also because it helps to throw light on the name of the river itself.
The ancient form of this name as preserved by the Avesta, Haêtumant, means literally 'having
dams', the word haêtu showing this meaning in a passage of the Vendidād (xix. 30), just like the
Sanskrit setu, its phonetic equivalent.⁴ This designation of the river becomes fully significant if
considered in relation with the important part which the annual construction of the great weir in
the main bed and the maintenance of the multitude of minor canal heads must have played in
Sīstān ever since its river was first harnessed to support settled agricultural occupation. This
also may help, perhaps, to account better for the application of the name Haêtumant to the territory
of Sīstān in two Avesta passages (Vd. i. 13 ; xix. 39).

Classical With regard to the later forms of the name it is interesting to note that the modern designation
forms of Helmand corresponds to the phonetic rule of Eastern Iranian which replaces the d of Western
name.
Iranian (Persian) by l. We have seen before that the language areas of Eastern and Western
Iranian seem to have met in Sīstān, as proved by the double forms Ζαράγγαι : Δράγγαι, &c.⁵
The character of Sīstān as a kind of linguistic watershed is curiously brought out also by the
varying forms of the name as found in classical texts. By the side of the 'Ετύμανδρος of Arrian,
IV. vi. 6, 'Ετουμάνδρος of Ptolemy, VI. xvii. 17, Ethymantus of Curtius, VIII. ix. 10,⁶ we have
the 'Ερύμανθος of Polybios, XI. xxxiv. 13, and Erymandos of Pliny, N. H. VI. 25. In the last
two forms we clearly recognize an intermediate stage of the phonetic process which in Eastern
Iranian first turned the tenuis between vowels, as usual, into a media, hence t > d, and then caused
this d through r to change into l.⁷

Section III.—THE SITE OF ZĀHIDĀN AND LATER RUINS TO
THE NORTH-WEST

Ruins de- The physical conditions prevailing within the actually occupied and irrigated portion of the
stroyed Helmand delta make it clear that ruins of any antiquity can survive there only if the ground on
through
irrigation. which they stood has since their abandonment remained unaffected by the moisture and heavy
accumulation of alluvium which necessarily accompany both regular irrigation and inundation
by occasional floods. Great changes in the course of the river branches constituting the northern,
i. e. the actually existing portion of the Helmand delta, and in the canal system dependent upon
them, have repeatedly taken place during recent times. They are abundantly attested as regards
earlier times by the extensive ruined sites to be found in Afghān territory to the east of the present

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