212 
ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY OF KAS'MIR. [Extra No. 2, 
Upper Sind Valley. 
At the mouth of Kank a nai Valley, and about two miles to the 
north-east of Clramocana, is the hamlet of Baravul which Kalhana 
mentions as an Agraharaof King Jalauka under the name of Varabala. 1 
A large sculptured Lihga base which 1 found here in 1891, shows the 
antiquity of the place. 
131 . Returning to the main valley we come, about three miles 
above Clramocana, to the large village of 
Kangan situated on the right bank on the Sind. 
It is, perhaps, identical with Kankanapura which Queen Didda is said to 
have founded in commemoration of her husband Ksemagupta, known 
by the epithet of ‘ Kankanavarsa.’ a No old localities can be identified 
with certainty in the Sind Valley until we reach the village of Gaganglr , 
situated two marches above Kangan, circ. 75° 15' long. 34° 18' lat. This 
is undoubtedly the Gaganagiri of Jonaraja, and the Fourth Chronicle. 3 
The place is mentioned in both texts in connection with invasions which 
were made into Kasmir over the Zoji-La Pass. The first was that of 
the Bhautta Rincana, the second the famous inroad of the Mu gh al 
leader Mirza Haidar (a.d. 1532). 4 The account which the latter himself 
has left us of his exploit, fully explains the special reference made 
to Gaganagiri by the Hindu Chronicler. 
About three miles above Gagangir two rocky spurs descend from 
opposite sides into the valley and reduce it to 
a narrow gorge (see map). The passage of 
this defile was until recent improvements of 
the road distinctly difficult, as large fallen rocks blocked the narrow 
space between the right bank of the river and the high cliffs rising 
above it. It is at this point of the valley which Mirza, Haidar calls 
‘ the narrow defile of Lar/ that the Kasmir chiefs vainly attempted 
to stop the brave Turks of the invader’s advanced guard. 
Kalhana’s Chronicles shows that the defile here indicated had 
witnessed fighting already at an earlier epoch. When King Sussala’s 
forces had driven Gargacandra, the great feudal chief, from his seats in 
Lahara, we are told that the Damara with his followers retired to the 
mountain called Dhudavana. There he was long besieged by the troops 
Defile of 
Dhudavana. 
1 See Rajat. i. 121 note. 
8 See Rajat. vi. 301. 
8 Compare Jonar. (Bo. ed.), 197, and Fourth Chron. 316. The old name of the 
locality ought to have been entered in the map. The Bombay edition of the Fourth 
Chron. wrongly reads gamananiryanta for gaganagiryanta of the MSS. 
* See TdrtJch-i RasKidl, p. 423. Mr. Elias in his note on the passage has quite 
correctly identified the defile meant by his author. The Fourth Chronicle names 
the autumn of the Laukika year [460]8 as the date of the event which agrees 
exactly with Mirza Haidar’s a.h. 939 Jamad II (December, 1532 a.d.). 
