The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c5.s3.t1.10

c5.s3.t1.10

The French traveller Thevenot,§ in his account of the dominions of the Emperor of Delhi, mentions that "there are many Rajas who own not the authority of the Great Mogul." But the territories of these Rajas must have been far in the interior of the hills, as we know that the chiefs of all the outer hills were subjected by the Mogul emperors. Thevenot specially mentions the province of "Ayoud, or Haoud," as containing "the most northern countries that belong to the Great Mogul, as Caucares, Bankish, Nagarcut, Siba, and others." The Caucares must be the Gakars who hold the lower hills to the west of the Jhelam. Terry* calls them Kakares, and their principal cities Dekalee and Purhola (or Dângali and Pharwâla). The Bankish are the Banchish of Terry,† whose "chief city, called Bishur (Peshâwar) lyeth east (read west) somewhat southerly from Chishmere, from which it is divided by the river Indus." Nagarcut is Kângra or Nagarkot, which is mentioned under the same name by Abu Rihân,‡ who was present at its capture by Mahmud of Ghazni. Siba is not as we might suppose, the small state in the neighbourhood of Kângra, but a district on the Ganges, of which the chief city, according to Terry, was "Hardware (or Haridwâra), where the river Ganges, passing through or amongst large rocks, makes presently after a pretty full current." From these accounts it is clear that the whole of the states in the lower hills, from Peshâwar on the west to the Ganges on the east, were subject to the emperor of Delhi. Regarding the general name of Ayoud, or Haoud, which Thevenot applies to them, I can only conjecture that it may be some corrupt form of Himavat, or Himwat, one of the well-known names of the Himálaya mountains, which the Greeks have preserved under the two different forms of Emódos and Imäus.