Tribes in Ancient India c6.5

c6.5

Gandhāra was on the N.W. frontiers of India in the neighbourhood of the Kāmbojas, Madras and similar other tribes, but there are differences of opinion among scholars with regard to its exact boundaries. It is generally accepted that Gandhāra denotes the region comprising the modern districts of Peshawar in the N.W. Frontier Province and Rawalpindi in the Punjab; but in the Old Persian inscriptions it seems to include also the district of Kābul in Afghānistān (see Rapson, *Ancient India*, p. 81). Rhys Davids (*Buddhist India*, p. 28) says that Gandhāra (modern Kandahar) ³ was the district of E. Afghānistān, probably including the N.W. Punjab. Vincent Smith apparently concurs with this view, saying that Gandhāra was equivalent to the N.W. Punjab and the adjoining regions.⁴ Dr. S. K. Aiyangar holds that Gandhāra was equivalent to E. Afghānistān, extending from the Afghan mountains to the district somewhat to the East of the Indus (*Ancient India*, p. 7). According to Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar, Gandhāra included the western Punjab and E. Afghānistān. Its capital was Takshaśilā where ruins are spread near Sarāīkālā in the Rawalpindi District of the Punjab.⁵ In the *Ain-i-Akbari*, Gandhāra forms the district of Pukely lying between Kashmir and Attock. Gandhāra, says N. L. Dey, comprised the modern districts of Peshawar and Hoti Murdan or what is called the Eusofzai country.¹ Cunningham, relying on the narratives of the Chinese pilgrims, Fā Hien and Hsüan Tsang, gives the following boundaries to Gandhāra (Chinese *Kien-to-lo*): Laghmān and Jalālābād on the west, the hills of Swāt and Bunir on the N., the Indus on the E., and the hills of Kālabāgh on the South (*Ancient Geography*, p. 48; and see McCrindle, *Ancient India as described by Ptolemy*, p. 116). According to Strabo, the country of the Gandarai, which he calls Gandaritis, lay between the Khoaspes (Kunar) and the Indus, and along the river Kophes (Kabul). The name is not mentioned by any of the historians of Alexander, but it must have been known to the Greeks as early as the time of Hekataios, who calls Kaspapyros a ‘Gandaric city’. Herodotus mentions the Gandarioi.² Rennell placed them to the west of Baktria in the province afterwards called Margiana, while Wilson took them to be the people south of the Hindu Kush, from about the modern Kandahar to the Indus, and extending into the Punjab and to Kashmir (*Ancient India as described by Ptolemy*—McCrindle, pp. 115-6). In some books, the name ‘Cave country’ was applied to Gandhāra (Watters, *On Yuan Chwang*, Vol. I, p. 200).