The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c5.s4.t3.4

c5.s4.t3.4

The town of Jhelam is situated on the west bank of the river, 30 miles to the north-east of Jalâlpur, and exactly 100 miles to the north-north-west of Lahor. The remains of the old town consist of a large ruined mound, to the west of the present city, about 1300 feet square and 30 feet high, which is surrounded by fields covered with broken bricks and pottery. The square mound I take to be the ruins of the citadel, which is said to have been called Puta. Numbers of old coins are still discovered in the mound after rain; but those which I was able to collect were limited to the mintages of the later Indo-Scythians, the Kabul-Brahmans, and the princes of Kashmir. As similar and even earlier coins are described by Court and Abbott to have been found in great numbers in previous years, it is certain that the city must have been in existence as early as the first century before Christ. But the advantages of its situation, on one of the two principal lines of road across the North Panjâb, are so great that it must, I think, have been occupied at a very early date. This opinion is confirmed by the numbers of large bricks that have been dug out of the old mound.