Mahavira Nirvan Bhumi Pava Ek Vimarsh

SR No.: 002135
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Bhagwati Prasad Khetan
Publisher: Parshwanath Shodhpith Varanasi
Publication Year: 1992
Total Pages: 268
Language: Hindi
Classification: Book_Devnagari & History
File Size: 12 MB

Page 236

२१६ : महावीर निर्वाणभूमि पावा : एक विमर्श track, from Pāwā to Kusipagara, in ancient times, was 12 miles, it is probable that the actual direct distance, if measured in a straight line, would be only about 10 miles; and I have already shown that the direction from Kusinagara must have been about southeast. In accordance with these deductions, I find that, at the distance of about 10 miles to the south-east from the ruins of Kusinagara, there are the ruins of an ancient city at a place called Chetiyaon (the Suthyaoon of the maps), and that there is also the ruin of a large stūpa at a place called Fājila or Fāzilnagar, only half a mile to the north-east of Chetiyaon, there being also the remains of other extensive ruins near the stūpa, which evidently originally formed simbly one portion of the same ancient city of which Chetiyaon formed another portion, there being merely a narrow belt of marshy land between the two ancient sites. Close or about a quarter of a mile to the north-east of the ruined stūpa there is the bed of an ancient river, which is now called the Sonua or Sunawa, or Sonarra Nadi; but at some part of its course further south it would seem to take the pame of Kūkū; for at the distance of about 10 miles to the south of Chetiyaon, I find that there is a ghāt, or ferry, called Kuku Ghāti; and along the bank of the same river, we also find such names as Karkulaba and Khūrhūria and Kuteya. Now according to the Ceylonese and Burmese Buddhist chronicles, the river near Pāwā, at which Buddha stopped to bathe and drink, was called Kukutthā or Kukuhā. But in these chronicles this river is said to have flowed between Pāwā and Kusinagara. Now about 12 mile to the west of Chetiyaon, there is another ancient river bed, which is called Anhea, but sometimes also Sonea or Sonawa. The name of this river bed called Anheya, or Anhea, may be connected with the Hindi anhānā, to bathe, and anhān bathing, which latter is synonymous with the Sanskrit asnān, and therefore the Anhea or Anheya Nala may be the very river at