The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c17.12.1

c17.12.1

Yuan Chwang, whose knowledge of the country was close and thorough, says that Yin-tu, as the Chinese called India, was divided into more than seventy kingdoms.¹ Such is likely to have been the number of states which were worth counting. But not all of them were perfectly independent. And besides them there seems to have been a yet larger number of feudatory domains. Putting the evidence of Yuan Chwang, Bāṇa-bhaṭṭa and the Inscriptions together, it appears that there were several circles of suzerainty, each comprising a suzerain and some feudatories, that within each circle there may be smaller circles of sub-infeudation, that Harṣa and Pulakeśin, who represented the two biggest and most important circles, claimed some sort of hegemony over less powerful suzerains and sometimes imposed their will on them. Thus, Kapis, probably modern Kāfiristān, was an independent state with ten dependencies. Its king celebrated the Mokṣapariṣad, the quinquennial Buddhist assembly, in the style of Harṣa.² Kashmir was also independent and had a number of dependencies such as Rājapur, Taxila and Siṃhapur. Yet Harṣa once compelled the king of Kashmir to part with a Buddha relic.³ Another independent state was Cheka with its capital at Sākala and with its circle of dependencies which included Multān. The praśasti of the temple of Lakkhā Maṇḍal at Maḍhā in Jaunsār (Bāwar) shows the royal race of Siṃhapur reigning in the modern district of Jalandhar.