1365.] Report of the Archaeological Survey . 203 



©r about A. D. 560, it was given by a Kayath to a body of Brahmans. 

 Tbey add also tbat the population of the village of Paor-Kheria is 

 known to have been wholly Brahman until a very recent period. 



X.— KANOJ. 



250. Of the great city of Kanoj, which for many hundred years 

 was the Hindu Capital of Northern India, the existing remains are few 

 and unimportant. In A. D. 1016, when Mahmud of Grhazni approach- 

 ed Kanoj, the historian relates that " he there saw a city which raised 

 its head to the skies, and which in strength and structure might justly 

 boast to have no equal." Just one century earlier, or in A. D. 915, 

 Kanoj is mentioned by Masudi as the Capital of one of the Kings of 

 India, and about A. D. 900 Abu Zaid, on the authority of Ibn 

 Wahab, calls " Kaduge, a great city in the kingdom of Gozar." At 

 a still earlier date, in A. D. 634, we have. the account of the Chinese 

 pilgrim Hwen Thsang, who describes Kanoj as being 20 li or 3J miles, 

 in length, and 4 or 5 li or f of a mile, in breadth. The city was sur- 

 rounded by strong walls and deep ditches, and was washed by the 

 Ganges along its eastern face. The last fact is corroborated by Fa 

 Hian, who states that the city touched the River Heng (Granges) when 

 he visited it in A. D. 400. Kanoj is also mentioned by Ptolemy, 

 about A. D. 140, as Kavoyi£a. But the earliest notice of the place is 

 undoubtedly the old familiar legend of the Puranas, which refers the 

 Sanskrit name of Kanya Kubja, or the " hump-backed maiden," to the 

 curse of the sage Vayu on the hundred daughters of Kusanaba. 



251. At the time of Hwen Thsang's visit, Kanoj was the Capital 

 of Raja Harsha Vardhana, the most powerful Sovereign in Northern 

 India. The Chinese pilgrim calls him a Fei-she, Vaisya, but it seems 

 probable that he must have mistaken the Vaisa, or Bais, Rajput, for 

 the Vaisya., or Bais, which is the name of the mercantile class of the 

 Hindus ; otherwise Harsha Vardhana's connexion by marriage with 

 the Rajput families of Malwa and Balabhi would have been quite 

 impossible. Baiswara, the country of the Bais Rajputs, extends from 

 the neighbourhood of Lucknow to Khara Manikpur, and thus com- 

 prizes nearly the whole of Southern Oudh. The Bais Rajputs claim 

 descent from the famous Sdlivdhan, whose capital is said to have been 

 JDaundia Khera, on the north bank of the Granges. Their close 



26' 



