On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c22.s14.2

v2.c22.s14.2

In this passage, the reader will observe, the pilgrim represents himself as having gone back from Maheśvara to Guchala, and to have continued his journey thence north to Sindh. But the Life makes him return from Maheśvara to Suraṭha and go from that to A-tien-p'o-ki-lo, thence on to Lang-ka-lo and Pitośila and Avanta, and then from this last east 700 li to Sindh. Julien suggests Vichavapura as possibly the original for the name of the capital here transcribed P'i-shan-p'o-pu-lo, and other restorations have been proposed, but no one seems to be perfectly satisfactory. The name given in our text moreover may have been a book name, and not current among the people at the time. Cunningham takes it to be another name for Alor the capital of Upper Sindh about this period.¹ General Haig writes—"Hiuen Tsang's Sindh, in fact, is not the Sindh of any period known to history, and his description of it is wholly irreconcilable with the facts which we gather from the contemporary history embodied in the "Tārīkh Hind-wa-Sind".² He thinks that Julien's Sin-tu country must have included the Salt Range, and that its capital must be looked for somewhere in the Derajāt. In a Dhāraṇī Sūtra the "Mālava (Mo-la-wan) country and the Indus-river city" are mentioned, along with other districts, as places in which "Perfection" may may be sought.³ According to I-ching Sin-tu and Lo-t'u, (or -ch'a) or Sindh and Lāṭa, were in West India and Sindh lay between Kapis and Lāṭa, the latter being in Central Gujarat according to Professor Bühler.¹