Page:The Ancient Geography of India.djvu/22
xii PREFACE.
háráshtra arrived at Bhároch on the Narbada, from
whence, after visiting Ujain and Balabhi and several
smaller states, he reached Sindh and Multân towards
the end of A.D. 641. He then suddenly returned to
Magadha, to the great monasteries of Nálanda and
Tiladhaka, where he remained for two months for the
solution of some religious doubts by a famous Bud-
dhist teacher named Prajnabhadra. He next paid a
second visit to Kamrup, or Assam, where he halted
for a month. Early in A.D. 643 he was once more at
Pátaliputra, where he joined the camp of the great
king Harsha Varddhana, or Silâditya, the paramount
sovereign of northern India, who was then attended
by eighteen tributary princes, for the purpose of add-
ing dignity to the solemn performance of the rites of
the Quinquennial Assembly. The pilgrim marched in
the train of this great king from Páṭaliputra through
Prayaga and Kosambi to Kanoj. He gives a minute
description of the religious festivals that were held at
these places, which is specially interesting for the
light which it throws on the public performance of
the Buddhist religion at that particular period. At
Kanoj he took leave of Harsha Varddhana, and re-
sumed his route to the north-west in company with
Raja Udhita of Jalandhara, at whose capital he halted
for one month. In this part of his journey his pro-
gress was necessarily slow, as he had collected many
statues and a large number of religious books, which
he carried with him on baggage elephants.* Fifty
of his manuscripts were lost on crossing over the
Indus at Utakhanda, or Ohind. The pilgrim himself
forded the river on an elephant, a feat which can only
- M. Julien's Hiouen Thisang,' i. 262, 263.