130 
ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY OF KAS'MlR. [Extra No. 2, 
Urasa-Hazara. 
83. Further to the west and beyond the course of the Vitasta 
after its great bend, lay the ancient kingdom 
of Urasa. 1 2 Its greatest part is comprised in 
the British district of Hazara, between the Vitasta and Indus. It is 
the Ovapaa or "Apcra of Ptolemy; its ruler figures as Arsakes in the 
accounts of Alexander’s campaigns. Hiuen Tsiang mentions the terri¬ 
tory by the name of Wu-la-shi and found it tributary to Kasmir. 
Though this dependence seems soon to have ceased we find Urasa often 
referred to in the Rajataraiigini. The account of S'arhkaravarman’s 
ill-fated expedition in this direction furnishes us with a cine as to the 
position of the old capital of Urasa. It probably lay between the 
present Mansahra and Abbottabad. 3 Kalhana’s notice of an expedition 
undertaken in his own time mentions in Urasa the town of Atyugra- 
pura. 3 I have shown in my note on the passage that this locality is 
probably represented by the modern Agror , situated on the border of 
Hazara towards the ‘Black Mountains.’ We have an intermediary 
form of the name in Ptolemy’s T#dyorpo<>, given as the designation of 
a town in Uarsa or Arsa north of Taxila. 
In Muhammadan times Urasa was included in the region known as 
Pakhli. This is defined by Abu-l-Fazl as comprising the whole of the 
hill territory between Kasmir in the east and the Indus on the west. 4 * To 
Pakhli belonged also the lower valley of the Kisanganga and the 
valleys of the streams which flow into the latter from the Kajnag Range 
and the mountains to the north-west of Kasmir. 
This tract which is now known as Karnau , bore the old name of 
Kisanganga Valley. Karnaha.. It seems to have been held by 
small chiefs nominally tributary to Kasmir 
even in later Hindu times. 6 It is but rarely mentioned in the Chronicle. 
The inhabitants were Khasas, 6 who are represented by the modern 
Bomba clans still holding Karnau. Their Rajas were practically 
independent till the Sikh conquest and often harried the north-western 
parts of Kasmir. 7 The last irruption of the Karnau Bombas and their 
allies, the Khakha chiefs of the Vitasta Valley, occurred as late as 
1846. 
1 For a detailed synopsis of the old notices, see Raj at. v. 217 note. 
2 See Rdjat. v. 217 note and Cunningham, Anc. Geogr., p. 104. 
3 Compare note viii. 3402. 
4 See Ain-i-Akb., ii. pp. 390 sq. 
6 Compare Rdjat. viii. 2485 note. 
8 See viii. 2756, 3006, 3088. 
7 Compare for the modern Karnau, Bates, Gazetteer, p. 228. 
