ČAḠĀNRŪD (Čaḡānīrūd in Farroḵī, the seventh and last right-bank
tributary of the Oxus or Amu Darya, rising in what in medieval
Islamic times were known as the Bottamān mountains and flowing
southwards through the principality of Čaḡānīān into the Oxus
just above the important crossing-point of Termeḏ (modern
Termez). Hence it flows from what is now the Gissarski (from
Ḥeṣār) Khrebet on the borders of the Tajik and Uzbek SSRs but
has the greater part of its course in the Surkhandar’inskaya
oblast of the easternmost part of the Uzbek SSR; its upper
course is now known as the Qarataḡ Daryā and its lower one
(below Denau, from Deh-e Now, the medieval Čaḡānīān town) as the
Sorḵān Daryā. Of the classical Islamic geographers, Maqdesī
(Moqaddasī; p. 22), calls it the anhār al-Ṣaḡānīān (the plural
“rivers” presumably referring to its separate headwaters); Ebn
Rosta (p. 93, tr. Wiet, p. 103) calls it the Rāmīḏ, thus
confusing it with the Kāfernehān river to the east. See also
Barthold, Turkestan3, p. 72. Farroḵī Sīstān