Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c18.s1.10

c18.s1.10

S. Lévi at first identified Kipin with Kaśmīra. But his view has been ably controverted by Sten Konow³ who accepts the identification with Kāpiśa.⁴ Gandhāra was at one time the eastern part of the realm of Kipin. A passage of Hemachandra's *Abhidhāna-Chintāmaṇi* seems to suggest that the capital of the Sai-wang (*Śaka-Muraṇḍa*) was Lampāka or Laghman (*Lampā-kāstu Muraṇḍāḥ syuḥ*).¹ Sten Konow says that according to the *Ts'ien Han-shu*, or *Annals of the First Han Dynasty*, the Sai, *i.e.*, the Śakas, passed the Hientu (the hanging passage), *i.e.*, the gorge west of Skardu on their way to Kipin.² Though the Śakas wrested parts of Kipin (Kāpiśa-Gandhāra) from the hands of Greek *meridarchs* (governors) they could not permanently subjugate Kābul,³ where the Basileus (king) maintained a precarious existence. They were more successful in India. Inscriptions at Mathurā and Nāsik prove that the Śakas extended their sway as far as the Jumna in the east and the Godāvari in the south, and destroyed the power of the 'Mitras' of Mathurā and the Sātavāhanas of Paiṭhan.⁴