The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c6.s3.t44.1

c6.s3.t44.1

The district of *Kie-cha*, or *Kheḍa*, is placed by Hwen Thsang at 300 *li*, or 50 miles to the north-west of Malwa.† As both M. Stanislas Julien and M. Vivien de Saint-Martin render *Kie-cha* by *Khacha*, which they identify in the peninsula of *Kachh*, I am bound to state the ground on which I venture to propose a different reading. On looking over the other names in which the peculiar symbol *cha* is used, I find that it occurs in the well-known names of *Pátali-putra* and *Kukkuṭa*, where it represents the cerebral *ṭ*, and again in *O.cha-li*, which M. Julien renders by *Aṭali*, and M. de Saint-Martin identifies with the desert region of the *Thal*, or *Thar*. Consistently, therefore, the name of *Kie-cha* should be rendered *Khe-ṭa*. Now *Kheḍa* is the true Sanskrit form of *Kaira*, a large town of Gujarât, situated between Ahmadâbâd and Khambay; and I would therefore identify the pilgrim’s *Kie-cha* with Kheda. It is true that Hwen Thsang’s recorded distance is only 300 *li*, but there are so many mistakes in the bearings and distances of this part of the pilgrim’s journey, that I have no hesitation in proposing a correction of the text, by reading 1300 *li*, or 217 miles, which is very nearly the exact distance between Kaira and Dhâr. When we remember that the province of Malwa was bounded on the east, within 25 miles, by the independent territory of Ujain, it is difficult to perceive how there could have been any other state within 50 miles of Dhâr, otherwise the territory of Malwa would have been compressed to a breadth of about 50 miles, between Ujain and Kheda. But this difficulty is entirely removed by adopting my proposed correction, by which the district of Kheda becomes the extreme western division of the kingdom of Malwa. Hwen Thsang estimates its circuit at 3000 *li*, or 500 miles, a size which agrees very well with the probable limits of the district of Kaira, which may be stated as extending from the bank of the Sâbarmati on the west, to the great bend of the Mahi river on the north-east, and to Baroda in the south. In shape it is a rough square.