The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c28.36

c28.36

¹ The Chinese texts, as Sylvain Lévi has proved conclusively, distinguish Ki-pin from Kao-fū, or Kābul. The signification of Ki-pin or Ka-pin has varied. In the seventh century, in the time of the Tang dynasty, it generally, although not invariably, meant Kapiśa, or North-eastern Afghanistan. Sten Konow in the paper mentioned in the preceding note (p. 811) holds that in Han times Ki-pin meant Gandhāra (the region including Taxila and Takht-i-Bahai). He seems to be right, and I relinquish my earlier view that the name signifies Kashmir, as suggested by Sylvain Lévi, in *J. A.*, tome vii, ser. ix, p. 161. See the learned observations of Watters (*On Yuan-chwang*, i, 259), who points out that 'in many Chinese treatises Ka-pin is a geographical term of vague and varying extension, and not the description of a particular country. It is applied in different works to Kapis, Nagar, Gandhāra, Udyāna, and Kashmir.' Sir M. A. Stein spells Ki-pin as Chi-pin. All Chinese names are spelt in a great variety of ways by different authors. Dates, also, are given with a certain amount of variation.