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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[Vol. V.
The great importance of the Paderia inscription for the topography of ancient India and the sacred history of the Buddhists has been fully recognised by Dr. Führer, who has discussed it in an article in the Pioneer of December 1896. It fixes with absolute certainty the situation of the garden of Lumbini where according to the Buddhist tradition prince Siddhartha was born. No adverse criticism can shake the evidence of the repeated assertion : "Here Buddha Akyamuni was born," and : " Here the worshipful one was born," as well as of the mention of Lunminigama, the first part of which name agrees with Lumbini in accordance with the analogy of Páli ammd for ambd and drammana for ålambana. Even the possible, but a priori improbable assumption that the pillar might have been brought to Paderia from some other place, is barred by the fact mentioned by Dr. Führer, that the site is still called Rummindei. and by the evidence of Hiuen Tsiang. The Chinese pilgrim, as Dr. Führer has duly noted, mentions the pillar as standing close to four Stúpas, the ruins of which are still extant. He further says that it was broken in the middle through the contrivance of a wicked dragon ; and its upper part actually seems to have been shattered by lightning, which the Buddhists ascribe to the anger of the Nagas, called 'dragons' by the Chinese. If Hinen Teiang omits to mention the inscription, the reason is no doubt, es Dr. Führer thinks, that it was covered at the time of his visit by an accumulation of débris. As stated already, it was found three feet below the ground, and the portion of the pillar which was visible on Dr. Fübrer's arrival, a piece only nin feet high, is covered with pilgrims' records, one of which was incised about A.D. 800. It is evident that the Asöka inscription must have been covered at least at that date.
The Padêria edict, of course, fixes also the site of Kapilavastu and of the sanctuaries in its neighbourhood. Pahien says that the Lumbini garden lies 50 li or, adopting Sir A. Cunningham's rookoning, 8f miles east of the capital of the Sakyas, and Dr. Führer has found its extensive ruins eighteen miles north-west of Padoria " between the villages of Amauli and Bikuli (north-east) and Ramghat on the Banganga (south-west)," covering & space seven miles long and from three to four miles broad. The country of the Sakyas, it now appears, has been looked for too far south by Sir A. Cunninghain and his assistants. Sir A. Cunningham's error has been caused by the vague statements of the Chinese pilgrims, who both say that in travelling from Bravasti to K& pilavastu they went south-east. As he had discovered by epigraphical evidence the identity of Srêvasti with the modern Sét or SabêtMahat between Akaona and Balrampur, it was but natural for him to infer that Kapilavastu must lio either in the Basti district or in Gorakhpur. Nevertheless, the town lay much further north, and it may be pointed out that its real position agrees with the hints, given in the Ceylonese canonical books. According to the Ambattha-Sutta the banished sons of Ikshvaku or Okkáka settled yattha Himavantapassé pokharaniya tirê maha sakasando; " where there was a great grove of tdka troes (Tectona grandis) on the bank of a lake (situated) on the slopes of the Himdlaya." This description fits the Nepalese Terai better than the absolutely flat districts of Basti and Gorakhpur, which are still some distance from the hills. The fact that the Sakyas were real jungle-Rajputs is not without importance for their history and the explanation of their curious customs. It makes their assertion that their ancestors were forcibly
Compare also my remarks in the Anzeiger der phil-hist. Clase der Wiener Akademie, January 7, 1897, and M. Barth in the Journal dos Sapanta, 1897, p. 65 ft. • Siyuki, Vol. II. p. 86. Travals, p. 67 (Legge).
Ancient Geography, p. 416. drol, Survey Reporta, Vol. I. p. 869; compare also the second inscription, found by Dr. Hoey. Ind. Auf Vol. XVIII. p. 61 ft.
* Digha-Nikdya, ili. 1,16 (Vol. I. p. 92, of Rhys Davids and E. Carpenter's edition).
Imperial Gazetteer of India (1st ed.). Vol. I. p. 493: "It (Basti) has a mean height of only 326 feet above the sea level and no natural elevations of any description diversify ita surface." Vol. III. p. 440: "The district of Gorakhpur lies immediately south of the lower Himalayan slopes, but forms itself portion of the grest alluvial plain . .. . . No greator elevation than a few sand bills breaks the monotony of its level surface."
