The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c5.s1.t11.18

c5.s1.t11.18

According to tradition, this was the site of the original town of Bázár. The position is an important one, as it stands just midway between the Swât and Indus rivers, and has, therefore, been from time immemorial the entrepôt of trade between the rich valley of Swât and the large towns on the Indus and Kabul rivers. Indeed, its name of Bázár, or "Mart," is sufficient to show that it has always been a place of consequence. Judging, therefore, by the importance of the place alone, I should be induced to select Bázár as the most probable representative of Bazaria; but this probability is turned almost to certainty by its exact correspondence, both in name and in position, with the ancient town that was besieged by Alexander. This identification is much strengthened by the proximity of Mount Dantalok, which is most probably the same range of hills as the Montes Dædali of the Greeks. In the spoken dialects of the present day, as well as in the ancient Pali, the nasal of the word danta is assimilated with the following letter, which thus becomes doubled, as in datton, a "tooth brush," or twig used for cleaning the teeth. Hence the Greek Daidalos is a very fair rendering of the Pali Dattalok. The Dædalian mountains are mentioned by Justin* as adjoining the kingdom of Queen Cleofis, or Cleophes, who, according to Curtius, was the mother (a mistake for wife) of Assacanus, king of Massaga. I have already identified the cave of Prince Sudána in Mount Dantalok, as described by Hwen Thsang, with the great cave of Kashmiri-Ghár, which is just eight miles to the north-west of Bázár. The Dantalok range would, therefore, have been on the right-hand of the Greeks on their march over the hills from Massaga in the Swât valley to Bazaria. From all these concurring circumstances, I conclude that Bâzâr is almost certainly the same place as Alexander’s Bazaria, and that Ohind was Embolima, as I have previously endeavoured to show.