The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c31.s5.2

c31.s5.2

Before proceeding to discuss the history of the kingdom of Kanauj, it will be well to give some account of the famous capital city, which is now represented by a petty Muhammadan country town (N. lat. 27° 3′, E. long. 79° 56′) in the Farrukhābād District of the United Provinces. Kanauj was of high antiquity. It is mentioned in several passages of the *Mahābhārata*, and alluded to by Patanjali in the second century B.C. as a well-known place. It has been so completely destroyed that nothing beyond rubbish heaps remains to testify to the former existence of its gorgeous temples, monasteries, and palaces. Commentators usually take it for granted that Kanauj is mentioned twice, under the variant names of Kanagora and Kanogiza,¹ in Ptolemy's *Geography*, written about A.D. 140, but there is little reason to warrant the belief. The first certain mention of the city with any descriptive details is in the *Travels* of the Chinese pilgrim Fa-hien, who visited Kanauj about A.D. 405, during the reign of Chandra-gupta II, Vikramāditya. His remark that the city possessed only two Buddhist monasteries of the Hīnayāna school and one *stūpa* suggests that it was not of much importance at the beginning of the fifth century.² Probably it grew under the patronage of the Gupta kings, but the great development of the city clearly was due to its selection by Harsha for his capital. When Hiuen Tsang stayed there, in 636 and 643, a marked change had occurred since Fa-hien's time. The later pilgrim, instead of two monasteries, found upwards of a hundred such institutions, crowded by more than 10,000 brethren of both the great schools. Hinduism flourished as well as Buddhism, and could show more than two hundred temples, with thousands of worshippers. The city, which was strongly fortified, then extended along the east bank of the Ganges for about 4 miles, and was adorned with lovely gardens and clear tanks. The inhabitants were well-to-do, including some families of great wealth; they dressed in silk, and were skilled in learning and the arts.¹