Indian Antiquary Vol 51

SR No.: 032543
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1985
Total Pages: 374
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 315

KAP
KAP
quarters of the provincial government of the Tarai, and three and half miles to the southwest of Nigliva. The town of Kapilavastu comprised the present villages of Chitra-dei Ramghat, Sandwa and Tilaura, of which the last mentioned place contained the fort and the palace within it. It is situated on the east bank of the Bangauga, which has been identified with the Bhagirathi, on the bank of which, according to some authorities, Kapilavastu was situated. He has identified Lumbini-vana with Rummin-dei which is a corruption of Lumiini-devi, ten miles to the east of Kapilavastu and two miles north of Bhagabanpur, and about a mile to the north of Paderia. The inscription found there on the pillar of Asoka leaves no doubt as to the accuracy of the identification. It distinctly mentions the name as "Lummini-gama" and contains a temple of Maya Devi. He has identified also Sarakäpa (Arrow-well) with Piprava, which also contains the stupa in which the Sakyas of Kapilavastu enshrined the one-eighth share of Buddha's relics obtained by them after his death. He identifies Kanaka-muni or Kanagamana-Buddha's birth-place Sobhâvatînagara with Araura, a yojana to the east of Tilaura, and Krakuchandra's birth-place Kheniavatinagara with Gutiva, four miles to the south of Tilaura. He has identified the Nyagrodha monastery with the largest mound to the south of Lori. Kudan, which is one milo to the cast of Gutiva, and one and a half miles west of Tauliva, and has also identified the place of massacre of the Säkyas by Virudhaka with Sagarwa, two miles to the north of Tilaura-kot (Mukherji's Antiquities in the Terai, Nepal, ch. 6). Buddha, when ho rovisited Kapilavastu at the request of his father Suddhodana who had sent Udâyi callod also Kaludâ to invite him, dwelt in the Nigrodha garden, where he converted his son Rahula and his step-brother Nanda. It was also in this Nyagrodhårâma Vihara that he refused to convert to Buddhism his step-mother Prajapati and other Sakya princesses, though at the request of Ananda, he converted them afterwards in Vaisali. The names of the twenty-four Buddhas who preceded Gautama Buddha are to be found in the Introduction to the Mahavamsa by Turnour. The Sakyas, including the Koliyans, had republican form of government like the Vajjians including the 8 clans, the Lichchhavis of Vaigali and others, and the Mallas of Kusinara and Pava. They elected a chief who was called Raja and who presided over the state. They carried on their business in a public hall called Mote Hall (Santhâgâra). Suddhodana, Buddha's father, was an elected president (Dr. Rhys Davids' Buddhist India, p. 19). The contemporaries of Buddha outside India were the prophet Ezekiel and king Josiah in Jerusalem, Crosus in Lydia, Cyrus in Persia, Anacreon, Sappho, Simonides, Epimenides, Draco, Solon, Asop, Pythagoras, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Pisistratus in Greece, Psammeticus in Egypt and Servius Tullius in Rome. 'Ahasuerus reigned thirty years after Buddha's
death (Spence Hardy's Legends and Theories of the Buddhists, Introduction, p. xxx). Kaplás 1. Kushan, ten miles west of Opian, on the declivity of the Hindu-kush: in
short, the country to the north of the Kabul river was Kapiśâ, the Kipin of the Chinese travellers. Julian supposes the district to have occupied the Panjshir and Tagao valleys in tho north border of Kohistan (Beal's R.W.C., I, p. 55n). It is tho Kapist of Panini. Ptolomy places Kapiba two and half degrees northwards from Kabura or Kabul (JASB., 1840, p. 484). According to Sir R. G. Bhandarkar, Kapiśd was North Afghanistan : the country to the north of the Kabul river (Ind. Ant., I, 22). According to Prof. Lassen, Kapisa is the valley of the Gurbad river (JASB., 1839, p. 146). The town of Kapisi was once the capital of Gandhâra (Rapson's Anc. Ind., p. 141). It has been identified with Afghanistan (Ind. Ant.,, I, 1872, p. 22). 2 The river Subarnarekha in Orissa