Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/78

76 'scientiﬁc frontier' for which Anglo-Indian statesmen have long sighed in vain. There is no reason to suppose that the trans-Indus provinces were lost by Binduséra, and it is reasonable to assume that they continued under the sway of Asoka, who refers to Antiochos, King of Syria, in terms which suggest that the Syrian and Indian empires were eonterminous. Costly buildings ascribed to Asoka were seen by Hiuen Tsang in diferent parts of Afghanistan. Among others he mentions a stone stûpa, a hundred feet high, at the town of Kapisa, somewhere in Kâfiristân, and a remarkable building of the same kind,three hundred feet in height and richly decorated, at Nangiahâr, near Jalâlâbâd, on the Kabul river. The Swat valley also contained evidences of Asoka's passion for building.

Abundant testimony proves the inclusion of the vale of Kashmîr within the limits of the empire. The city which preceded the existing town of Srînagar or Pravarapura as the seat of government was founded by Asoka, and is generally believed to be represented by the ancient site called Pândrethan, two or three miles to the south-east of the present capital. But the Muhammadan chroniclers locate Asoka's city at