40 Verification of the Itinerary of Hwan Thsang [July, 



supposition of a northern channel of the Ganges flowing between Gaur 

 and Malda should not be admitted, then Hwan Thsang' s statement 

 must be wrong, for I have no doubt of the correctness of my own iden- 

 tification of the places. A similar mistake is made by the most accu- 

 rate of all travellers, Moorcroft, who says that Shah-dera is situated on 

 the left bank of the Ravi.* Gaur is probably the Aganagora of Pto- 

 lemy, situated just above the head of the Gangetic Delta. This may be 

 the Sanskrit ^JlWfl^", Aganga-Gaurka, the " countless Gaurh," in allu- 

 sion to the multitude of its inhabitants.) 



Thence crossing the Ganges to the E. at 600 li (100 miles) to 



No. 81 — Pan-na-fa-tau-na, 400^ li (166 miles) in extent. To the 

 W. of the town at 20 li was the monastery of Pa-shi-pho (in Sanskrit 

 Pushpa, " flower,") and close to the town was a Stupa of Asoka. (The 

 Chinese syllables would seem to represent the Sanskrit m*n2n«r, Pdm- 

 pasthana, or Pampathan, " river-town," and as a great river was after- 

 wards crossed to the eastward, the place must have been situated some- 

 where on the Brahmaputra river, at or near the present Chilmari.) 



Thence to the E. at 900 li (150 miles) to 



No. 82 — Kia-ma-leu-pho, 10,000 li (1,666 miles) in extent. The 

 people of this country were unconverted, and had built no monasteries. 

 The King was a Brahman named Ketj-ma-lo, and surnamcd Pho-se- 

 ko-lo-fa-ma (that is, his name was Kumdra, and his title was Push- 

 kalavarmma,) or perhaps rather Pushkala-brahma, as Varmona is a 

 Kshatriya's title.) His kingdom was the ancient Kamrnp, the country 

 of Ptolemy's Tamer w, and now called Asam, from the conquering Raja 

 Chu-kapha, who took the title of Asama or " unequalled." The dis- 

 tance mentioned by Hwan Thsang points to the neighbourhood of 

 Gohati as the position of the capital, which is perhaps the Tugma 

 Metropolis of Ptolemy. It is clear that Kamrup comprehended the 

 whole of what is now known as Asam, for Hwan Thsang proceeds to 

 state that amongst the mountains to the E. there was no great king- 

 dom ; and that in two months the southern frontier of the Chinese 



* Travels, Vol. 1. p. 107. I have a suspicion that this is a mistake of the Editor, and 

 not of Moorcroft himself— for Professor Wilson has certainly not done full justice to 

 Moorcroft, no doubt owing to the confused state of the papers. Thus the description 

 of the piers of the Kashmirian Bridges is transferred to the pillars of the Jama Masjed. 

 It is no wonder therefore that Thornton was puzzled. A new edition of Moorcroft, 

 unmutilated, would be of more vajue than any other single book of travels that I know. 



