On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c21.s5.2

v2.c21.s5.2

Cunningham regarded the Samataṭa of this passage as being the district of "the Delta of the Ganges and its chief city which occupied the site of the modern Jessore".¹ Fergusson considers it to be the Dacca district the former capital of which was Sonargaon.² We should probably place it south of Dacca, and in the district of the modern Faridpur. I-ching, who uses our pilgrim's transcription of the name, merely places the country in East India.³ He calls the king at his time Hoh-lo-she-po-t'a (曷羅社婆吒) which M. Chavannes restores as Harshabhaṭa. But the first three characters are, as he states, used to express Rāja, and the King's name was probably Rājabhaṭa. This king was an enthusiastic adherent and patron of Buddhism, and the number of Brethren in the capital had risen, from the 2000 in our pilgrim's time, to 4000 who were all maintained by the king. Yuan-chuang tells us that the Brethren in the capital were of the Sthavira School, and at the time of I-ching's visit they were evidently Mahāyānists, but, as our pilgrim uses these terms, there is nothing conflicting in the two accounts.⁴