The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c5.s1.t1.31

c5.s1.t1.31

The appellation of Begrâm means, I believe, nothing more than "the city" *par excellence*, as it is also applied to three other ancient sites in the immediate vicinity of great capitals, namely, Kabul, Jalâlâbâd, and Peshâwar. Masson derives the appellation from the Turki *be* or *bi*, "chief," and the Hindi *grám*, or city,—that is, the capital.[*] But a more simple derivation would be from the Sanskrit *vi*, implying "certainty," "ascertainment," as in *vijaya*, victory, which is only an emphatic form of *jaya* with the prefix *vi*. *Vigráma* would therefore mean emphatically "the city"—that is, the capital; and *Bigrám* would be the Hindi form of the name, just as *Bijay* is the spoken form of *Vijaya*.