OPIAN, called Hupian by Haber, is supposed by General Cunningham to be Alexandria apud Caucasum. According to Pliny, the city of Alex andria, 'in Opianum, was situated at 50 Roman miles, or 45.96 English miles, from Ortospona, and at 237 Roman miles, or 217.8 English miles, from Peueolaitis or Pukkalaoti, which was a few miles to the north of Peshawur. Ortospana has been identified by General Cunningham with the ancient city of Kabul and its citadel the Bala Hisser. Pliny further describes Alexandria as being situated sub ipso Caucaso, at the very foot of Caucasus, which agrees exactly with the posi tion of Opian, at the northern end of the plain of •oh-i-daman or hill-foot. The place was chosen by Alexander on account of its favourable site at the triodon, or parting of the 'three roads' leading to Bactria. These roads, which still remain un changed, all separate at Opian, near Begram, the N.E. road, by the Panjsher valley, and over the Khawak pass to Anderab ; the west road, by the Kushan valley, and over the Hindu Rush pass to Ghori ; the S.W. road, up the Ghorband valley, and over the Hajiyak pass to Bamian.
The first of these roads was followed by Alex ander on his march into Bactriana from the territory of the Paropainisada. It was also taken by Timur on his invasion of India ; and it was crossed by Lieutenant Wood on his return from the sources of the Oxus. The second road must have been followed by Alexander on his return from Bactriana, as Strabo specially mentions that he took over the same mountains another and shorter road' than that by which he had advanced. It is certain that his return could not have been by the Bamian route, as that is the longest route of all ; besides which, it turns the Hindu Kush, and does not cross it, as Alexander is stated to have done. This route was attempted by Dr. Lord and Lieutenant Wood late in the year, but they were driven back by the snow. The third road is the easiest and most frequented. It was taken by Chengiz Khan after his capture of Bamian ; it was followed by Moorcroft and Burnes on their journeys to Balkh and Bokhara ; it was traversed by Lord and Wood after their failure at the Kushan pass ; and it was surveyed by Sturt in A.D. 1840, after it had been successfully crossed by a troop of horse artillery. As, however, it is noted that there was a mountain named Aruna at a distance of five miles to the south, it is almost certain that this city must have been on the famous site of Begram, from which the north end of the Siah-Koh or Black Mountain, called Chahal Dukhtar or the Forty Daughters, lies almost due south at a distance of 5 or 6 miles.
Begram also answers the description which Pliny gives of Cartana, as Tetragonis, or the Square ; for Masson, in his account of the ruins, especially notices some mounds of great magnitude, and ac curately describes a square of considerable dimen sions. General Cunningham says that if he is right in identifying Begram with the Kiulu-sa-pang of the Chinese Pilgrim, the true name of the place must have been Karsana, as written by Ptolemy, and not Cartana, as noted by Pliny. The same form of the name is also found on a rare coin of Eukra tides, with the legend Karisiye nagara, or city of Karisi, which he has identified with the Kalasi of the Buddhist chronicles as the birthplace of raja Milindu. In another passage of the same chronicle, Milindu is said to have been born at Alasandra or Alexandria, the capital of the Yona or Greek country.. Kalasi must therefore have been either Alexandria itself or some place close to it. The latter conclusion agrees exactly with the position of Begram, which is only a few miles to the east of Opian. The appellation of Begram means, he believes, nothing more than the city par excellence, as it is also applied to three other ancient sites in the immediate vicinity of great capitals, namely, Kabul, Jalalabad, and Peshawur. Masson derives its appellation from the Turki, be or bi, chief, and the Hindi, gram or city, that is, the capital. But a more simple derivation would be from the Sanskrit vi, implying certainty, ascertainment, as in vijaya, victory, which is only an emphatic form of jays, and with the prefix in Vigrama would therefore mean emphatically the city, that is, the capital ; and Bigram would be the Hindi form of the name, just as Bijaya is the spoken form of Vijaya. The plain of Begram is bounded by the Panjsher and the Koh-i-daman rivers on the north and south, by the Mahighir canal on the west, and on the east by the lands of Julgha, in the fork of the two rivers. Its length, from Bayan on the Mahighir canal, to Julgha, is about 8 miles ; and its breadth, from Kilah Wand to Yuz Bashi, is 4 miles.—Cunningham's India, pp. 21, 237.