The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c2.10

c2.10

My chief guides for the period which I have undertaken to illustrate, are the campaigns of Alexander in the fourth century before Christ, and the travels of the Chinese pilgrim, Hwen Thsang, in the seventh century after Christ. The pilgrimage of this Chinese priest forms an epoch of as much interest and importance for the Ancient History and Geography of India, as the expedition of Alexander the Great. The actual campaigns of the Macedonian conqueror were confined to the valley of the Indus and its tributaries; but the information collected by himself and his companions, and by the subsequent embassies and expeditions of the Seleukide kings of Syria, embraced the whole valley of the Ganges on the north, the eastern and western coasts of the peninsula, and some scattered notices of the interior of the country. This information was considerably extended by the systematic inquiries of Ptolemy, whose account is the more valuable, as it belongs to a period just midway* between the date of Alexander and that of Hwen Thsang, at which time the greater part of North-west India had been subjected by the Indo-Scythians.