SATPURA. This name is now genemlly applied to the mountain range or table-land which, com mencing eastward at Arnarkantak, runs neatly GOO miles up to the western coast of India, though the appellation seems to have been formerly restricted to that portion of the range which divides the Nerbadda and Tapti valleys. The Satpura range is known to Hindus as three portions, the most easterly being the Nfykal, the centre is the Mana cle°, and only their western portion as the Injadri or Satpura. Chouragarh, 4200 feet above the sea, is the highest. peak of the lfahadeo rang,e. The Mahadeo portion culminates in the Pachinarri peaks, sacred to NIaliadeo. From Rajpipla to Asir garh consists of a belt of mountainous country, 40 or 50 miles in breadth, and of an average height at the crest of the chain, but little under 2000 feet above the sea, while many peaks rise above 3000, and some (and even sotne table-lands, as Turan 31a1) are as high as 4000 feet. Nearly the whole of this range, both hills and valleys, consist of trap ; but towards the west, along the northern boundary of Kandesh, a series of craggy peaks are met with, such as are but rarely seen in the trap region. Elsewhere the summit of the range is more or less a table-land. Just east of Asirgarh there is a break, through which the railway from Bonlbay and Kandesh to Jubbulpur passes, the highest part of which is only 1240 feet, This break leads from- close to the junction of the two alluvial plains in the Tapti and Punta to a flat tract lying between the two Nerbadda plains.
East of this break the trap hills continue till south of Iloshangabad, where sandstone and meta morphic rocks emerge and form a great portion of the hills of the Paehmarri and Betul country.
There is a table-land of considerable extent round Bettil, which extends far to the eastward beyond Chindwara and Scold, and joins the high plateau of Amarkantak. Upon this plateau trap still predominates, and a great spur from it eaten& between the Tapti and the Puna, forming the northern boundary of 13erar as far as the e.on fluence of those rivers. This range ifs also of considerable height, in places nearly 9000 feet. 1,ike most other ranges, it has no definite name, and is generally looked upon as a portion of the Satpura. The Satpura Hills divide the valleys of, and form the watershed between, the Tapti and Nerbadda, anti the Satpura plateau is the true barrier between Northern and Southern India, and is the line on which the settlers froin Hindustan met the emigrants from the Dekhan ancl Nfahara,slitra, each of them pressing the prior non-Aryan races into the great natural fa.stnesses of Central India. In Hoshangabad are Bhari a, Chamar, Gond, Gujar, Kunbi, Kurku, Lodhi, and Maria. In Nfaudla, Ahir, 13aiga, Dher or Mhar, Dhimar, Gaoli, Gond, Kol, Kurmi, bodhi, and Teli. In Nimar are Ithil, Bhilal, Dher, Gond, Kunbi, and Kurku ; and in Seoni, Altir, Dher, Gaoli, Gond, Kurku, Nfali, and Ponwar.