3S1 
1895.] M. A. Stein —Topography of the Pir Pantsal Route. 
name, we cannot speak with any certainty of the relation it bears to the 
legend above recorded. Still, it will be well to remember the numerous 
legends of the West wliich modern research has traced back in their 
origin to ‘ popular etymologies ’ of old local names, and accordingly to 
keep in view the possibility that in the case of ITasPvahj , too, the name 
may have given rise to the story or at least to its localization at that 
particular spot. Whatever our views on this point may be, it will be 
clear from the evidence collected above that Kalhana has preserved for 
us here, as in many other instances, an old local tradition. 1 
The other references of the Chronicle to this route through the 
mountains may be discussed conveniently in connection with the pas¬ 
sages iii. 227 and v. 39. In the first named passage Kalhana relates to 
us how the poet Matrgupta , whom the great Vikra maditya- liars a of 
Ujjayini had nominated regent of Ka^mlr, found, after crossing the 
mountains, the Ka^mirian ministers waiting for him on the border of 
the Kingdom. As the place of meeting Kalhana indicates the ‘ dhakJca 
called Kambuva , 4 which was then situated in the locality called Kranm- 
varta , but is now ( i.e ., in Kalhana’s own time) at Curapura. 1 
From the second passage we learn that it was fiira, the powerful 
minister of king Avantivarman (circiier 855-883 a. d.), who transferred 
the 4 dhahha ’ from Krdmavarta to the town of Qurapura which he had 
founded himself. 
The general direction in which we have to look for the localities 
here referred to, is sufficiently indicated by the mention of Curapura. 
which is undoubtedly identical with the present Hor por , the end 
station of the Pir Pantsal route, as shown above. This is proved, apart 
from the identity of the names (which is clearly established by the 
phonetic laws of Ka^mirl), 2 by the numerous passages of the 
Rajataraijgiin and the later Chronicles which mention Qurapura either as 
1 Bernier witnessed on the Pir Pantsal an accident which forms a curious 
counterpart to the legend above discussed. It occurred on the ascent from Pusiana 
and must, therefore, be located on the opposite (Panjab) side of the Pass. The long 
line of elephants which carried the ladies of Aurangzeb’s seraglio, got into con¬ 
fusion on the steep road, with the result that fifteen elephants fell down the 
precipice and were lost. The curious map of Ka<jmlr which is reproduced in Con¬ 
stable’s translation, p. 408, from the Amsterdam Edition of 1672, shows graphically 
the ‘Fire Penjcle’’ mountain with the troop of elephants rolling down its slopes. 
2 In Qurapura Hvr a por we have the regular phonetic change of Skr. 
Kafjm. k, as illustrated, e . g ., by Skr. gat a, Kacm. hath 1 hundred 5 ; £7 amald, Havial 
(name of Pargana) ; garad, harud ‘autumn’. For the shortening of the u of the 
first syllable compare Skr. tida , Ka<pn. till ‘mulberry’; sindura, sindor ‘red lead’; 
suc[i, siits[an ‘needle’, -pura at the end of local names appears in Kagmlrl al¬ 
ways as —por; compare Kalydnapura, Kalampor; Suyyapura., Sopor; Parihcisapura , 
• Par a spor, etc. 
J. i. 49 
