Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c9.s7.471

c9.s7.471

**Kamboja** is constantly associated with Gandhāra in literature and inscriptions.¹ Like Gandhāra it is included in the Uttarāpatha, *i.e.*, the Far North of India.² It should, therefore, be clearly distinguished from "Kambuja" in the Trans-Gangetic Peninsula (*i.e.*, *Cambodia*),³ and must be located in some part of North-West Indo-Pakistan close to Gandhāra. The *Mahābhārata* connects the Kambojas with a place called Rājapura.⁴—"*Karṇa Rājapuraṁ gatvā Kāmbojā nirjitā-stvayā*."⁵ The association of the Kambojas with the Gandhāras enables us to identify this Rājapura with the territory of that name mentioned by Yuan Chwang⁶ which lay to the south or south-east of Punch. The western boundaries of Kamboja must have reached Kāfiristān. Elphinstone found in that district tribes like the 'Caumojee,' 'Camoze,' and 'Camoje' whose names remind us of the Kambojas.¹