The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c5.s1.t3.6

c5.s1.t3.6

Professor Lassen has already remarked that the name of *Kipin*, which is so frequently mentioned by other Chinese authors, is not once noticed by Hwen Thsang. Remusat first suggested that *Kipin* was the country on the Kophes or Kabul river; and this suggestion has ever since been accepted by the unanimous consent of all writers on ancient India, by whom the district is now generally called Kophene. It is this form of the name of *Kipin* that I propose to identify with the *Hu-phi-na* of Hwen Thsang, as it seems to me scarcely possible that this once famous province can have remained altogether unnoticed by him, when we know that he must have passed through it, and that the name was still in use for more than a century after his time.* I have already stated my suspicion that there has been some interchange of names between the province and its capital. This suspicion is strengthened when it is found that all difficulties are removed, and the most complete identification obtained, by the simple interchange of the two names. Thus *Hu-phi-na* will represent *Kophene*, or *Kipin*, the country on the Kabul river, and *Fo-li-shi-sa-tang-na*, or *Urddhasthána*, will represent *Ortostana*, which, as we know from several classical authorities, was the actual capital of this province.