National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

capital. Once more Taxila furnishes an absolutely safe starting-point for our
investigation; for it is after dealing with the kingdom of Takshaśilā, or Taxila,
that Hsüan-tsang's account takes us to Siṁhapura. For the sake of convenience
I may reproduce it here in Mr. Watters's translation, changing only the wording
where the use of the past instead of the present gives it, quite needlessly, the
appearance of a paraphrase.

'From this (that is, the neighbourhood of Takshaśilā) going south-east across
hills and valleys for above 700 li you come to the Seng-ha-pu-lo (Siṁhapura)
country; this is about 3,500 li in circuit with the Indus on its west frontier. The
capital fourteen or fifteen li in circuit rests on hills and is a natural fortress.
The soil of the country is fertile, the climate is cold, the people are rude, bold
and deceitful. There is no king and the country is a dependency of Kashmir.

'Near the south of the capital is an Aśoka tope, the beauty of which is impaired
although its miraculous powers continue, and beside it is a Buddhist monastery
quite deserted.'

A look at the map suffices to show that by a hilly territory situated to the
south-east of Taxila and adjoined on the west by the Indus no other area can be
meant than the one comprising the Salt Range in the wider sense of the term and
now divided between the Districts of Rawalpindi, Jhēlum, Attock, and Shāhpur.
It is true that if we take the 700 li to refer, as usually in Hsüan-tsang's distance
reckonings, to the distance from capital to capital we should be taken far beyond
the area where any town surrounded by hills can possibly be looked for. But since
the pilgrim's own subsequent narrative distinctly states that he returned from
Siṁhapura to the northern confines of the territory of Taxila, a statement con-
firmed also by his Life,⁵ we can safely accept the explanation long ago suggested
by Cunningham that the distance of 700 li relates to the whole length of the
journey from Taxila to Siṁhapura and back.

Mr. Watters's suggestion 'that north-east should be substituted for south-
east in the statement of the direction of Siṁhapura from Takshaśilā' implies an
obvious geographical impossibility in view of what is said about the territory
bordering on the Indus in the west. On the other hand, it is easy to account for
the distance of 700 li if we assume that the double journey to and from Ketās is
intended; for the direct distance between it and Taxila is about 72 miles as
measured on the map, and 350 li would be a very reasonable estimate for the
journey by road, considering that in hilly country not more than about 4 li can
be reckoned to the mile.⁶