The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c5.s2.t7: 6. Rajapura, or Rajaori.
The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c5.s2.t7
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6. Rajapura, or Rajaori.
c5.s2.t7.1
From Punach, Hwen Thsang proceeded to the south-east for 400 *li*, or 67 miles, to *Ko-lo-she-pu-lo*, or *Rá-japura*,* which I long ago identified with the petty chiefship of Rajaori, to the south of Kashmir. The circuit of the district is described as 4000 *li*, or 667 miles, which is about double the true amount, unless, as is not improbable, the whole of the hill-states as far as the Râvi be included within its boundaries. From the native chronicle of Kashmir we learn that the petty chiefships of the hills to the south and south-east of the valley were generally subject to Kashmir; and there is no reason to suppose that they were independent at the time of Hwen Thsang's visit.
c5.s2.t7.2
The district of Rajaori proper is nearly a square of about 40 miles each side, bounded on the north by the Pir Panchâl, on the west by Punach, on the south by Bhimbar, and on the east by Rihâsi and Aknur.† By extending its boundary on the east to the Chenab, and on the south to the plains, it would include all these petty places; even then its frontier would not be more than 240 miles, or by road about 320 miles. But if the frontier of these hill-states subject to Kashmir be extended to the Râvi on the east, the circuit would be about 420 miles measured on the map, or not less than 560 miles by road.
c5.s2.t7.3
∗ Julien's 'Hiouen Thsang,' ii. 188.
c5.s2.t7.4
† See Maps Nos. V. and VI.
c5.s2.t7.5
Râjapuri is frequently mentioned during the medieval period of Kashmiri an history, but chiefly in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when it was an independent state under its own rajas. In the fifteenth century the Hindu family was dispossessed in favour of a son of the Muhammadan king of Kashmir; and his descendant was so reduced by Gulâb Singh that in 1846 he was glad to accept an estate in the British district of Kângra in exchange for his petty chiefship of Rajaori.