The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c5.s2.t3.29

c5.s2.t3.29

We now come to Hwen Thsang, the last and best of the Chinese pilgrims, who first visited Ta-cha-shi-lo, or Takshasila, in A.D. 630, and again in A.D. 643, on his return to China. He describes the city as about 10 li, or 1 2/3 mile, in circuit. The royal family was extinct, and the province, which had previously been subject to Kapisa, was then a dependency of Kashmir. The land, irrigated by numbers of springs and water-courses, was famous for its fertility. The monasteries were numerous, but mostly in ruins; and there were only a few monks who studied the Maháyána, or esoteric doctrines of Buddhism. At 12 or 13 li, or 2 miles, to the north of the city there was a stupa of King Asoka, built on the spot where Buddha in a former existence had made an alms-gift of his head; or, as some said, of one thousand heads in as many previous existences. This was one of the four great stupas that were famous all over north-west India;† and accordingly on his return journey Hwen Thsang specially notes that he had paid his adorations, for the second time, to the “stupa of the alms-gift of one thousand heads.‡ The present name of the district is Chach-Hazára, which I take to be a corruption of Sirsha-sahasra, or the “thousand heads.” In the Taxila copper-plate of the Satrap Liako Kujuluka, the name is written Chhahara-Chukhsa, which appears to me to be only another form of the same appellation.