On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c12.14

v1.c12.14

The Life and Records leave the situation of the ruined city of Sākala rather uncertain. The latter work tells us that this city was 14 or 15 *li* south-west from the new capital, of the situation of which, however, we are not told anything. In the Life Sākala is three (or four) days' journey or about 300 *li* (about 60 miles) south-east from Rājapur and on the east side of the Chenāl. Then the *old capital* of the Records does not appear in the Life which on the other hand mentions a large city on the eastern confines of Che-Ka and this city does not appear in the Records. Cunningham, against both the Life and the Records, places Sākala about 120 miles to the *south-west* of Rājapur. He identifies Yuan-chuang's Cheh-ka (or Tsekia), as name of a city, with "the ruins of a large town, called Asarur which accord almost exactly with the pilgrim's description of the new town of Tsekia". This Asarur is "exactly 112 miles distant from Rajaori (Rājapur) in a direct line drawn on the map", that is, 112 miles to the south-west of Rājapur. But it is very evident that Yuan-chuangs journey from the latter to the capital of Cheh-Ka was a zig-zag one always, however, tending eastward, and Asarur cannot be the pilgrim's capital of that country.