The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c6.s3.t13.2

c6.s3.t13.2

Of the great city of Kanoj, which for many hundred years was the Hindu capital of northern India, the existing remains are few and unimportant. In A.D. 1016, when Mahmud of Ghazni approached Kanoj, the historian relates that “he there saw a city which raised its head to the skies, and which in strength and structure might justly boast to have no equal.”† Just one century earlier, or in A.D. 915, Kanoj is mentioned by Masudi as the capital of one of the kings of India; and about A.D. 900 Abu Zaid, on the authority of Ibn Wahab, calls “*Kaduje* a great city in the kingdom of *Gozar*.” At a still earlier date, in A.D. 634, we have the account of the Chinese pilgrim Hwen Thsang, who describes Kanoj as being 20 *li*, or 3½ miles, in length, and 4 or 5 *li*, or ¾ of a mile in breadth.* The city was surrounded by strong walls and deep ditches, and was washed by the Ganges along its eastern face. The last fact is corroborated by Fa-Hian, who states that the city touched the river *Heng*, or Ganges, when he visited it in A.D. 400. Kanoj is also mentioned by Ptolemy, about A.D. 140, as *Kavoyíζα*. But the earliest notice of the place is undoubtedly the old familiar legend of the Purânas, which refers the Sanskrit name of *Kánya-kubja*, or the “hump-backed maiden,” to the curse of the sage *Vayu* on the hundred daughters of *Kusanába*.