vii] EARLY HISTORY OF NORTHER VIANDIA 299
creed. Buddhism declined, for the most part, because people
no longer cared for it, and not because it was suppressed by
force. A similar process of gradual decay may now be observed
in the case of Sikhism, which would become extinct in a short
time if it were not kept alive by the esprit de corps of the
Sikh regiments.
The observations of Hiuen Tsiang present a picture of India State of
in the seventh century which may be compared with the earlier India in
seventh
accounts of Megasthenes and Fa-hien. The Greek ambassador century.
was informed that India comprised a hundred and eighteen
nations or countries. In Hiuen Tsiang's time only about seventy
such divisions were recognized, most of which he visited. For
him India began with Lamghan, to the east of the Siah Koh, or
'black ridge,' north of the Kabul river. The territories
west of the Indus, including Gandhara, had become subject
to the king of Kapisa, or Northern Afghanistan, and part of
the Punjab was under the dominion of Kashmir. North
of the Narbada river all, or nearly all the states, while still
governed, of course, by their own Rajas, seem to have recog-
nized the suzerainty of Harsha, and even the king of distant
Assam obeyed his orders and attended in his train. The
king of Valabhi in the far west was his son-in-law, and also
helped to swell the crowd of twenty tributary princes. For the
efficient control of his extensive dominions Harsha seems to
have relied more upon his personal supervision than upon
a highly organized bureaucracy like that of Chandragupta
Maurya. He was continually on the move, except during the
rainy season, so that his camp was his capital. Pataliputra,
the ancient imperial capital, was then in ruins.
The judicial system, however defective it may seem to Judicial
modern eyes, pleased the learned Chinese pilgrim. Criminals system.
or rebels, he observes, were few in number, and only occasion-
ally troublesome. The ordinary punishment was imprisonment,
which meant, as now in Tibet, that the prisoners 'are simply
left to live or die, and are not counted among men.'
But certain crimes regarded as heinous, including breaches
of filial piety, were liable to punishment by amputation of the
nose, ears, hands, or feet, or by banishment to the wilds.
Minor offences were expiated by fine, which in Fa-hien's time
had been considered an adequate penalty for more serious
crimes. It would seem that the disorders produced by the
barbarian invasions of the fifth and sixth centuries had
necessitated greater severity in the penal laws. Torture was
not employed to extract evidence, but an absurd system of
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