Page:The Ancient Geography of India.djvu/17

PREFACE. vii

in the fifteenth century, during the troubles which followed the invasion of Timur. The history of this period is very confused, owing to the want of a special map, showing the boundaries of the different Muham- madan kingdoms of Delhi, Jonpur, Bengal, Malwa, Gujarât, Sindh, Multân, and Kulbarga, as well as the different Hindu States, such as Gwalior and others, which became independent about the same time.

I have selected the Buddhist period, or Ancient Geography of India, as the subject of the present inquiry, as I believe that the peculiarly favourable opportunities of local investigation which I enjoyed during a long career in India, will enable me to de- termine with absolute certainty the sites of many of the most important places in India.

My chief guides for the period which I have under- taken to illustrate, are the campaigns of Alexander in the fourth century before Christ, and the travels of the Chinese pilgrim, Hwen Thsang, in the seventh century after Christ. The pilgrimage of tnis Chinese priest forms an epoch of as much interest and import- ance for the Ancient History and Geography of India, as the expedition of Alexander the Great. The actual campaigns of the Macedonian conqueror were confined to the valley of the Indus and its tributaries; but the information collected by himself and his companions, and by the subsequent embassies and expeditions of the Seleukide kings of Syria, embraced the whole valley of the Ganges on the north, the eastern and western coasts of the peninsula, and some scattered notices of the interior of the country. This infor- mation was considerably extended by the systematic inquiries of Ptolemy, whose account is the more valu-