V. Yuan Chwang's Mo-la-p'o

Yuan chwang describes a country which he calls Mo-la-p'o, immediately after his account of the kingdom of Broach in the modern Bombay Presidency. Up to lately, this name has (with some hesitation) been considered as equivalent to Mālava, the modern Mālwā. Mr. Vincent Smith, on pp. 279, 280 of his Early History of India , and at greater length in vol. lviii of the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft , has attacked this interpretation, and, with a confidence somewhat strongly contrasted with the diffident opinions of his predecessors, maintains that “ the learned authors who identify Mo-la-p'o with Mālava, meaning by the latter term the kingdom of Ujjayinī, are demonstrably mistaken.” He insists that Yuan Chwang's Mo-la-p'o “ clearly corresponds with the modern Bombay districts of Kaira and Ahmadabad, together with parts of Baroda and some adjoining territory.” In other words, it roughly corresponds with a portion of what is now called North Gujarāt

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