1899. J 
THE PIR PANTSAL RANGE. 
73 
Hastivafija. 
commanders of this frontier-station more than once engaged in military 
operations against intending invaders from the other side of the moun¬ 
tains. 
Ascending the valley of the Rembyar?' or Ramanyatavi for about 
7 miles we reach the point where the streams coming from the Pir 
Pantsal and Rupri Passes unite. In the angle formed by them rises 
a steep rocky hillock which bears on its top a small ruined fort 
known as Kamelankoth. These ruins probably go back only to the 
time of 1 Ata Muhammad Khan,’ the Af gh an Governor of Kasmir, 
who, about 1812, fortified the Pir Pantsal Route against the Sikh 
invasion then threatening. But I have proved in the above-quoted 
paper that they mark the original position of the ancient watch-station 
on this route before its transfer to S'urapura. 1 Kalhana, iii. 227, calls 
this site Kramavarta. This name is rendered by a glossator of the 17th 
century as Kamelanakotta and still survives in the present Kamelankoth 
(*Kramavartanam kofta). 
43. The old ‘ Imperial Road’ constructed in early Mughal times 
then ascends the narrow valley, keeping on 
its left side high above the Pir Pantsal stream. 
At a distance of about four miles above Kamelankoth and close to the 
Mughal Sarai of ‘ Allabad, a high mountain-ridge slopes down from 
the south and falls off towards the valley in a wall of precipitous cliffs. 
The ridge is known as Hqst'vafij. This name and the surviving local 
tradition makes it quite certain that we have here the spot at which a 
curious legend told by Kalhana was localized from early times. 2 
The Chronicle, i. 302 sqq. relates of King Mihirakula whose identity 
with the White Hun ruler of that name (circ. 515-550 a.d.) is not 
doubtful, that when on his return from a tour of conquest through India 
he reached the ‘ Gate of Kasmir,’ he heard the death-cry of an elephant 
which had fallen over the precipice. The gruesome sound so delighted 
the cruel king that he had a hundred more elephants rolled down at the 
same spot. The old glossator on the passage informs us that “ since 
that occurrence the route by which Mihirakula returned, is called 
TIastivahja .” The Persian Chroniclers too in reproducing the anecdote 
give Hastivanj as the name of the locality. 
The local tradition of the neighbouring hill tracts still knows the 
story of a king’s elephants having fallen down here into the gorge 
below. It also maintains that the old route to the Pass, in the times 
before the construction of the ‘ Imperial Road ’, crossed the Hast'vanj 
ridge and followed throughout the right bank of the Pir Panigal 
1 J. A. S. B. y 1895, pp. 384 sq. 
* Compare J. A. S. B„ 1895, pp. 378 sqq. 
J. i. 10 
