The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c4.62

c4.62

At the time of Hwen Thsang’s visit, in the seventh century, India was divided into eighty† kingdoms, each of which would appear to have had its separate ruler, although most of them were tributary to a few of the greater states. Thus, in Northern India, the districts of Kabul, Jalâlâbâd, Peshâwar, Ghazni, and Banu were all subject to the ruler of Kapisa, whose capital was most probably at Charikâr, or Alexandria ad Caucasum. In the Panjâb proper the hilly districts of Taxila, Singhapura, Urasa, Punach, and Rajaori, were subject to the Raja of *Kashmir*; while the whole of the plains, including Multan and Shorkot, were dependent on the ruler of *Tâki*, or Sangala, near Lahor. In Western India the provinces were divided between the kings of *Sindh*, *Balabhi*, and *Gurjjara*. In Central and Eastern India, the whole of the different states, from the famous city of Sthâneswara to the mouth of the Ganges, and from the Himâlaya mountains to the banks of the Narbadâ and Mahânadi rivers, were subject to Harsha Varddhana, the great King of Kanoj. Jâlandhara, the most easterly district of the Panjâb, was also subject to him; and it is highly probable that the ruler of *Tâki*, or the plains of the Panjâb, must likewise have been a dependant of Kanoj, as we are informed by the Chinese pilgrim that Harsha Varddhana advanced through his territory to the foot of the Kashmir hills, for the purpose of coercing the ruler of that country to deliver up to him a much-venerated tooth of Buddha. The Rajput king of Mahârâshtra, in Southern India, was the only sovereign who had successfully resisted the armies of Kanoj. This statement of the Chinese pilgrim is corroborated by several inscriptions of the Châlukya princes of Mahârâshtra, who make a proud boast of their ancestor's discomfiture of the great King Harsha Varddhana.* This powerful prince was the paramount sovereign of thirty-six different States, comprising nearly one-half of India in extent, and including all its richest and most fertile provinces. The substantial reality of his power may be gathered from the fact that no less than eighteen, or just one-half, of these tributary princes attended on their suzerain lord during his great religious procession from Pâtaliputra to Kanoj, in A.D. 643. The extent of his dominions is clearly indicated by the names of the countries against which he directed his latest campaigns, namely, Kashmir in the north-west, Mahârâshtra in the south-west, and Ganjam in the south-east.† Within these boundaries he was the paramount ruler of the continent of India during the first half of the seventh century of the Christian era.