The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c30.s3.5

v1.c30.s3.5

Kāpiçī, the Κάπισα (MSS. Κάτισα) of Ptolemy (VI, 18, 4), was a city of the Paropanisadae; and, according to Pliny (VI, 23 (25)), it had been destroyed by Cyrus. It is mentioned by Pāṇini (IV, 2, 99); and from his time onwards it is best known in Sanskrit literature as giving its name to a spirituous liquor distilled from the flowers of the Mādhavī creeper. But our chief knowledge of Kāpiça, as the kingdom may be called in distinction from its capital, Kāpiçī, comes from Chinese sources. For the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims it was the frontier country on their long journey to Northern India. It was a fruitful land of alpine valleys surrounded by mountains on every side. It was here that the Chinese princes who were detained as hostages in Kanishka’s court spent the summer, while they passed the spring and autumn in Gandhāra and the winter in India. When Hiuen Tsiang visited Kāpiça in 630 A.D., it was a powerful kingdom, which, according to his description as interpreted by Cunningham, ‘must have included the whole of Kāfiristān, as well as the two large valleys of Ghorband and Panjshir’ (*Geog.* p. 18); and on it at that period were dependent the neighbouring kingdoms of Lampāka (Laghmān), Nagara (probably Jalālābād), and Gandhāra.