CHAPTER IV
BREAK-UP OF UNITY
I
Before the Hindus complain of the destruction of the unity of India, let them make certain that the unity they are harping upon does exist. What unity is there between Pakistan and Hindustan ?
Those Hindus, who maintain the affirmative, rely chiefly upon the fact that the areas which the Muslims want to be separated from India have always been a part of India. Historically this is, no doubt, true. This area was a part of India when Chandragupta was the ruler; it continued to be a part of India when Hsuan Tsang, the Chinese pilgrim, visited India in the 7th century A. D. In his diary, Hsuan Tsang has recorded that India was divided into five divisions or to use his language, there were ‘ five Indies ’* : (1) Northern India,
(2) Western India, (3) Central India, (4) Eastern India and
(5) Southern India and that these five divisions contained 80 kingdoms. According to Hsuan Tsang, Northern India comprised the Punjab proper, including Kashmir and the adjoining hill States with the whole of Eastern Afghanistan beyond the Indus, and the present Cis-Satlaj States to the west of the Sarasvati river. Thus, in Northern India there were included the districts of Kabul, Jallalabad, Peshawar, Ghazni and Bannu, which were all subject to the ruler of Kapisa, who was a Hindu Kshatriya and whose capital was most probably at Charikar, 27 miles from Kabul. In the Punjab proper, the hilly districts Taxila, Singhapura, Urasa, Punch and Rajaori, were subject to the Raja of Kashmir; while the whole of the plains, including Multan and Shorkot, were dependent on the ruler of Taki or Sangala, near Lahore. Such was the extent of the
*Cunningham’s Ancient Geography of India (Ed. Majumdar), pp. 13-14. The writers of the Puranas divided India into nine divisions.