IK HISTORY OF CASHMIR. 



though not very accurately, as appears from the text, as a synonime of 

 Cashmir, and in that sense it might have been employed by the ancients. 

 Strabo, Quintus Curtius, Diodorus Siculus, and Arrian, with some varie- 

 ties of nomenclature, mention, Biasarus or Abiosarus, Abisares or Abia- 

 sares, Embisares and Abissares, as a Prince, whose dominions lay to the 

 north of the Punjab, confounding the name of the king with that of his 

 country ; an error much to be regretted, as it deprives us of the possibility 

 of verifying some of the Monarchs in the Sanscrit text. Abissares as he 

 is called, was the neighbour and ally of Porus, but after the defeat of that 

 Prince, he sent ambassadors to Alexander. His dominions lay immedi- 

 ately above the country between the Indus and Hydaspes, or Vitasta, the 

 Behut or Jelum : it would have been more correctly placed between the 

 Jelum and the Chinab or Acesines, but the difference is not very consider- 

 able. Abhisara as a part of Cashmir, of a milder temperature, is likely to 

 have been the most southerly portion of it, or possibly a tract below the 

 mountains, and approaching the level of the Punjab : a situation, which 

 will correspond very nearly with the site of the Ilegio Abissari of the clas- 

 sical writers. Monsr. D'Anville finds an analogy to Abissares in Pe- 

 shawer (Antiq. Geogr. 14). Major Rennell considers Ambisares as king 

 of the Indian mountaineers, the predecessors of the Ghickers, who oc- 

 cupied the hilly tract immediately west of Cashmir (Memoir 109 and 122) 

 and Tieffenthaler calls the Bisari les habitans des Montagnes de Jam- 

 bou : either of the two first positions is sufficiently near, to what seems 

 to be the truth. Although Abhisara appears in the text, in this place, as 

 a part of Cashmir, yet in a subsequent portion of the history, it is menti- 

 oned as an independent state, and it might have held that rank at the time 

 of Alexander s invasion : its interposition between the Greek invaders 

 and Cashmir, and finally the southern deflection of Alexander s route, may 

 explain why no notice was taken of that kingdom, in the details of that 

 conqueror's marches, an omission which D'Anville justly regards as un- 

 accountable, particularly as the country appears to have been known by 

 its proper appellation to the Greek writers before the Macedonian invasi- 

 on of Persia, 



