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No. 1.)
THE ASOKA EDICTS OF PADERIA AND NIGLIVA.
ejected from the more civilised districts in the south very credible, though the truth of the cause of their banishment, stated in the Buddhist work quoted above, may be doubted. Further, their isolation in the jungles may have led, as the canon alleges, to their custom of endogamy, so repugnant to all Rajputs and to all the higher castes in India. And this custom, - not their pride of race, as they themselves asserted, was no doubt the reason why the other royal families of Northern India did not intermarry with them. This isolation and the Consequent estrangement from the rest of the Hindu population probably accounts also for their disinclination, mentioned in the Ambattha-Sutta, to show hospitality to the Brahmans who came to their settlement from Srávaatt or other parts of India. Their religion, however, was Saivism and of the ordinary type of Hinddism. Hinen Tsiangl was still shown near the eastern gate of Kapilavastu the old temple of tsvara, where the infant Siddharths was taken by his father, becanse " the sakys children who here seek divine protection always obtain what they ask.” According to the legend the stone image then raised itself and Balated the prince. Mr. Beal has correctly recognised that the scene is represented on the Amaravati Stapa. The legend is therefore ancient and undoubtedly points to the conclusion that Siva was the kuladévata of the Sakyas. Perhaps Dr. Führer will pay special attention to this temple, which certainly must be one of the oldest Sivite monuments of which we have knowledge and pos808808 great interest for the history of the Brahmapical religions.
In addition to the ruins of Kapila vasta Dr. Führer has also succeeded in tracing the site of Napeikia-Nábhika,' the supposed birth-place of the mythical Buddha Krakuchchhanda, and of the Stupa of his Nirvana, which is still eighty feet high, exactiy in the position indicated by Fahien, vis. one yojana or “7 miles" south-west of Kapilavastu. The important sites of Ramagrama and of Kusinara, where Agāka's pillar with an undated record of Sakyamuni's Nirvana existed in Hiuen Tsiang's time, will have to be looked for in the eastern portion of the Nepalese Terai. If the direction given by the Chinese, - east of Lambini,- is correct, Kasingrå cannot be identical with Kasia in the Gorakhpur distriot, where Sir A. Cunningham and Mr. Carlleyle believed to have found its ruing.
The value of the Nigliva edict for the history of Buddhism has been pointed out in my preliminary notice of the document. As the Stupa of Konakamana was "increased " or enlarged for the second time in Asôka's fifteenth year, it would appear that the monument had been erected before the beginning of the king's reign, or before B.C. 259. Konkkamana or Kop&gamana belongs to the long series of purely mythical predecessors of the historical founder of Buddhism. The mythology of Buddhism must not only have been developed, but the myths must have been fixed locally, before it could ocour to the Faithful to build Stapae in hononr of their heroes. It seems difficult to believe that all these stages of the development could have been accomplished in a short time. As they had been completed in the first half of the third century B.O., it becomes probable that the origin of Buddhism lies very much earlier and that, therefore, it is impossible, as some scholars have done, to fix. the Nirvana in B.C. 350 or in B.O. 325. The remoter date, cir. B.O. 477, is, also on this consideration, the more probable one. I regret that, when writing my first notice, I overlooked that the Stapa, the pillar and its inscription are mentioned by Hiuen Tsiang in the Siyuki, Vol. II. p. 19. If I had noticed this, I might have announced at once that the site of Kapilavastu must be looked for in its neighbourhood. Dr. Führer, who years ago had shown Mr. Carlleyle's identification of Bhulla with Kapilavastu to be erroneous, apparently found the passage and hence gave expression to the expectation of discovering the Sakya capital near Bhagvånpur in his
* Siyuki, Vol. II. p. 28.
* Regarding this identification see the number of the Anteiger der phil.-hist. Classe der Wiener Akademie, quoted above.
* Travels, p. 64 (Legge). • Wiener Zeitschrift fir die Kunde der Morgenlandes, Vol. IX. p. 175 ff.; Leademy, 1895, April 27.
