SAKALA or Sangala, an ancient town in the Panjab, the She-kie-lo of IIiwen Thsang. It was the capital of Raja Milinda, was subject to Raja Mihirkul, is the Sangala of Alexander, and has long ago been recognised in the Sakala of the Brahmans and the Sagal of the Buddhist. It was visited by the Chinese pilgrim Hiwen Thsang in A.D. 630. Both Arrian and Curtius place Sangala to the east of the Hydraotes or Ravi ; but the itinerary of Hiwen Thsang shows that it was to the west of the Ravi, and as nearly as possible in the position of the present Sanglawala-Tiba or Sangala Hill. Wilford three times described its position in the Asiatic Researches. When Hiwen Thsang visited the city there was a monastery of 100 monks who studied the Hinayana, or exoteric doctrines of Buddhism, and beside it there was a stupa, 200 feet in height, where the four previous Buddha had left their footprints. The Brahmanical accounts of Sakala have been collected fronr the Mahabharata by Professor Lassen iu his Pentapo tamia Indica. According to that poem, Sakala, the capital of the Madra race, who are also called J.artika and Bahika, was situated on the•Assaga rivulet to the west of the Iravati or Ravi river. The country is still well known •rs Madr-des, or the district of the Madra, which is said by some to extend from the Beas to the Jhelum, but by others only to the Chenab. The Buddhist notices
of Sakala refer chiefly to its history in connection with Buddhism. There is the legend of the seven kings who went towards Sagal to carry off Prabhavati, the wife of king Kusa. But the king, mounting an elephant, met them outside the city, and cried out with so loud a voice, I am Kusa ! that the exclamation was heard over the whole world, and the seven kings fled away in terror.' This legend may have some reference to the seven brothers and sisters of Amba-Kapa, which is only 10 miles to the east of Sangala. Before the be ginning of the Christian era, Sagal was the capital of Raja Milinda, whose name is still famous in all Buddhist countries as the skilful opponent of the holy Naga-Sena. The territory was then called Yona or Yavana, which might refer either to the Greek conquerors or to their Indo-Seythian successors ; but as Naga-Sena is said to have lived either 400 or 500 years after Buddha, the date of Milinda is uncertain.—Cim ningliam's Ancient India, p. 179.