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PTOLEMY'S GEOG. BK. VII. CH. 1, $$ 45, 46.
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of the name answers letter for letter to the name in Ptolemy, and the latter part may point to the tribe Ghilet or Ghilghit, the Gahalata of Sanskrit. (V. Saint-Martin, Etude, pp. 59-60). Urasa is mentioned in the Mahabharata and once and again in the Rájatarangint.
Ithagouros -The Ithagouroi are mentioned by Ptolemy (lib. VI, c. xvi) as a people of Sêrika, neighbouring on the Issêdones and Throanoi. Saint-Martin takes them to be the Dagors or Dangors, one of the tribes of the Daradas.
Taxiala is generally written as Taxila by the classical authors. Its name in Sanskrit is Taksha-sila, a compound which means hewn rock' or hewn stone.' Wilson thinks it may have been so called from its having been built of that material instead of brick or mud, like most other cities in India, but Cunningham prefers to ascribe to the name a legendary origin. The Pali form of the name as found in a copper-plate inscription is Ta khasila, which sufficiently accounts for the Taxila of the Greeks. The city is described by Arrian (Anab. lib. V, c. viii) as great and wealthy, and as the most populous that lay between the Indus and the Hydaspês. Both Strabo and HiuenTsiang praise the fertility of its soil, and the latter specially notices the number of its springs and watercourses. Pliny calls it a famous city, and states that it was situated on a level where the hills sunk down into the plains. It was beyond doubt one of the most ancient cities in all India, and is mentioned in both of the great national Epics. At the time of the Makedonian invasion it was ruled by a prince called Taxilés, who tendered a voluntary submission of himself and his kingdom to the great conqueror. About 80 years afterwards it was taken by Asoka, the son of Vindusära, who subsequently succeeded his father on the throne of Magadha and established Buddhism as the state religion throughout his wide dominions. In the early part of the 2nd century B.C. it had become a province of the Græco-Baktrian monarchy. It soon changed masters however, for in 126 B.O. the Indo-Skythian Sus or Abars acquired it by conquest, and retained it in their hands till it was wrested from them by a different tribe of the same nationality, under the celebrated Kanishka. Near the middle of the first century A.D. Apollonius of Tyana and his companion Damis are said to have visited it, and described it as being about the size of Nineveh, walled like a Greek city, and as the residence of a sovereign who ruled over what of old was the kingdom of Pôros. Ite streets were narrow, but well arranged, and such alto gether as reminded the travellers of Athens. Outside the walls was a beautiful temple of
porphyry, wherein was a shrine, round which were hung pictures on copper tablets representing the feats of Alexander and Pôros. (Priaulx's Apollon., pp. 13 sqq.) The next visitors we hear of were the Chinese pilgrims Fa-hian in 400 and Hiuen-Tsiang, first in 630, and afterwards in 643. To them, as to all Buddhists, the place was especially interesting, as it was the scene of one of Buddha's most meritorious acts of alms-giving, when he bestowed his very head in charity. After this we lose sight altogether of Tazila, and do not even know how or when its ruin was accomplished. Its fate is one of the most striking instances of a peculiarity observable in Indian history, that of the rapidity with which some of its greatest capitals have perished, and the completeness with which even their very nantes have been obliterated from living memory. That it was destroyed long before the Muhammadan invasion may be inferred from the fact that its name has not been found to occur in any Muhammadan author who has written upon India, even though his account of it begins from the middle of the tenth century. Even Albiruni, who was born in the valley of the Indus, and wrote bo early as the time of Mahmod of Ghazni, makes no mention of the place, thongh his work abounds with valuable information on points of geography. The site of Taxila has been identified by Cunningham, who has given an account of his explorations in his Ancient Geography of India (pp. 104-124). The ruins, he says, cover an area of six square miles, and are more extensive, more interesting, and in much better preservation than those of any other ancient place in the Pani These ruins are at a place called Shah-dheri, which is just one mile from Kala-ka-serai, a town lying to the eastward of the Indus, from which it is distant a three days' journey. Pliny says only a two days' journey, but he under-estimated the distance between Peukelaotis and Taxila, whence his error.
46. Around the Hidaspês, the country of the Pandoön oi, in which are these cities : Labaka ........................... 127° 30 34° 15' Sagala, otherwise called Euthymedia
........126° 20' 320 Boukepbala .......... ........125o 30 30° 20' Iomousa .......... ........124° 15' 30°
The Country of the Pandoöuoi:-The Pandya country here indicated is that which formed the original seat of the Pandavas or Lunar race, whose war with the Kauravas or Solar race is the subject of the Mahabharata. The Pandavas figure not only in the heroio legends of India but also in its real history,
