In his Life of Gaudama, Bishop Bigandet remarks that “the voyages of two Chinese travellers, undertaken in the fifth and seventh centuries of our era, have done more to elucidate the history and geography of Buddhism in India than all that has hitherto been found in the Sanskrit and Pali books of India and the neighbouring countries.” Feeling strongly impressed with the truth of this observation, I attempted, in a paper published in a recent volume of this Journal, to utilize the scanty materials afforded by the Chinese travellers to settle some of the disputed points of Mediæval Indian chronology; and I now propose to examine a portion of the much more copious materials their works afford for determining the geography of India at the period it was visited by them.

The inclosed is an extract from a letter which Mr. B. H. Hodgson did me the honour to write to me about two years ago, in reference to some passages in a paper on the Senbyú Pagoda in Burma, which appeared in the Society's Journal for 1870, with additional remarks by the late Mr. C. Horne and by Mr. Fergusson. I inclose the original sketch which Mr. Hodgson put into my hands along with the letter, authorizing me to make what use of them seemed best.

In my recent paper on Hwen Thsang's Geography of Tokháristán, I made what may have seemed a rash suggestion, that the Folichisitangna of the Traveller, a territory at the foot of Hindu Kush, might represent the country of the Parâchis of Baber. But the suggestion has received corroboration from a passage that I recently observed in the Travels of Sidi ' Ali (Journ. As., tom, ix., p. 203). The admiral being at Kàbul, and about to cross the Hindu Kush, the Governor sent Mir Nezir, chief of the Tribes of Farâshi and Bashâtsi ( and ) to demand 300 men of those tribes to conduct the horses and camels across the Pass. The party then proceeded by Karâbâgh and Chârikarân to Parwân. There they entered on the territory of Mir Nezir, and found the tribesmen assembled. This seems to show that the territory of the Farâshis (or Parâchis) was about Parwán, i.e. close to Hupiân, which is supposed to be the Hupinah of Hwen-Thsang, called by him the capital of Folichisitangna. Bashâtsi is, I imagine, a clerical error for Bashâi (), the well-known name of a tribe (Pashâis) which I have supposed to be possibly connected with that of the adjoining kingdom of Kapiçca or Kapisha.

To gratify clever astrologers, I now proceed to compose a work on the art of building, such as it has been transmitted from the Creator to our days, through an unbroken series of sages.

The discovery of an undisturbed hoard of no less than 13,500 coins in Kooch Bihár, inhumed some five centuries since, recently claimed attention both from the number and importance of its representative specimens, which so effectively illustrated the history of the kingdom of Bengal for a consecutive period of some 107 years. The earliest date thus accorded towards the purely Initial Coinage of the country under its newly-installed Muslim administrators did not reach higher than the reign of the Empress Riẓíah, A.H. 634–637 (A.D. 1236–1239), or more than 34 years after the first entry of the adventurous Khilji and Túrkí troops into the recognized Hindú capital of the lower Ganges. A still more recent discovery of a comparatively poor man's cache, in the fort of Bihár, elucidates an earlier chapter of the local annals; and though the contents of the earthen vessel in this case are limited in number to a total of 37 pieces, and restricted in their dates to a term of 13 years, they, in some respects, compete advantageously with the previously-recovered unexampled store, in the value of their contributions to the obscure records of the Gangetic Delta, and in priority of date bring us more than 20 years nearer to the first occupation of Bengal by Muhammad Bakhtyár Khiljí in 600 A.H. As in the larger and almost-regal treasure trove of Kooch Bihár, the specimens in the present instance prove to be essentially of home or indigenous fabric.

From a brief examination of a work in the India. Office Library, called “K'ai yuen shĭ kiau,” (one volume of which is unfortunately missing), I find that the number of books included in the Chinese Buddhist Canon, down to the time of Tchi-Shing, the compiler of the work in question (who lived A.D. 730 during the Tang dynasty (618–904 A.D.), and shortly after Hwen-Thsang), amounted altogether to 1076, divided into 5048 chapters (kiouen), and included within 480 wrappers (chih). Of these, 330 belong to the “Little vehicle,” and 968 to the “Great vehicle,” leaving 108 miscellaneous and unclassified. Of the “Little vehicle,” 240 are Sûtras, in 618 chapters, and 48 wrappers; 54 belong to the Vinaya Piṭaka, in 446 chapters and 45 wrappers; 36 belong to the Abidharma Piṭaka, in 698 chapters and 72 wrappers. Of the 968 belonging to the “Great vehicle,” 515 are Sûtras, in 2173 chapters and 203 wrappers; 26 belong to the Vinaya Piṭaka, in 54 chapters and 5 wrappers; and 97 belong to the Abidharma Piṭaka, in 518 chapters and 50 wrappers.

Since the above paper was printed off, it has occurred to me that the Konkanapoura mentioned at page 266 has nothing whatever to do with the Concans now below the Grhâts, as I was inclined to think was possible, but may have been the capital of the Kongadesa or Chera kingdom, which we know, at the period of Hiouen-Thsang's visit, was one of the three great kingdoms occupying the south of the peninsula.