Page:The Ancient Geography of India.djvu/23

PREFACE. xiii

be performed during the months of December, Janu- ary and February, before the stream begins to rise from the melted snows. According to my calcula- tions, he crossed the Indus towards the end of A.D. 643. At Utakhanda he halted for fifty days to obtain fresh copies of the manuscripts which had been lost. in the Indus, and then proceeded to Lamghân in com- pany with the King of Kapisa. As one month was occupied in this journey, he could not have reached Lamghâm until the middle of March, A.D. 644, or about three months before the usual period, when the passes of the Hindu Kush become practicable. This fact is sufficient to account for his sudden journey of fifteen days to the south to the district of Falana, or Banu, from whence he reached Kapisa viâ Kâbul and Ghazni about the beginning of July. Here he again halted to take part in a religious assembly, so that he could not have left Kapisa until about the middle of July A.D. 644, or just fourteen years after his first entry into India from Bamian. From Kapisa he passed up the Panjshir valley and over the Khâwak Pass to Anderâb, where he must have arrived about the end of July. It was still early for the easy cross- ing of this snowy pass, and the pilgrim accordingly notices the frozen streams and beds of ice which he encountered on his passage over the mountain. To- wards the end of the year he passed through Kâsh- gâr, Yârkand, and Kotan, and at last, in the spring of a.d. 645, he arrived in safety in the western capital of China.

This rapid survey of Hwen Thsang's route is suffi- cient to show the great extent and completeness of his Indian travels, which, as far as I am aware, have