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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[Vol. XXV.
the location did not agree with the accounts of the Chinese travellers. Moreover, he has emphatically pointed out that the Kukkuțārāma or Kukkuța-vibāra must not be confounded with the Kukkutapāda-giri. Stein had occasion to visit this part of the country in the winter of 1899, and, with a view to arriving at a definite opinion regarding the identification, he made a thorough survey. After a close examination he came to the conclusion that the Kukkutapadagiri or Gurupāda-giri is represented by the Sõbhnàth bill, a part of the Maher hill, in the district of Gaya.Stein's identification met Beal's objections to some extent, but was not totally convincing. Finally Banerji investigated the matter further, and conclusively proved that the modern representative of the Gurupāda-giri is to be found in the Gurpā hill in the district of Gaya.. This identification is warranted not only by the name Gurpā being phonetically a corrupt form of the Gurupāda itself, but also because it satisfies all other considerations, as detailed by the author. Nevertheless, some scholars even now, knowingly or unknowingly, adhere to Cunningham's discarded identification of the Kukkutapāda mountain with Kurkihar,
Judging from the description of the pedestal as well as from the nature of the inscription on it, the statue of Kasyapa in question must have been one of considerable artistic merit, typifying the art of the Pāla period. It is greatly to be regretted that the major portion of the statue itself is not forthcoming. It would have been a unique specimen inasmuch as the known sculptural representations of Käsyapa are few. In fact, 80 far as I know, we do not have a single entire piece of this kind. At Bishanpur in the Gayā district, Beglar noticed one image of Kāśyapa. "On & small bas-relief”, so runs his description, "representing a figure seated cross-legged in Buddha fashion is inscribed Ye Dharmma Rāsi Maha Kasyapa (sic.); this statue is clearly therefore one, of the venerable president of the first synod, and is the only one I have seen or heard of, of one of Buddha's disciples. The present whereabouts of this statue are not known. Even in 1899, when Stein visited Bishanpur, he found it missing, for he writes: "I was, however, unable to trace the small bas-relief, which is mentioned by Mr. Beglar as bearing a short inscription with the name of Mahākāsyapa.?" It may in passing be pointed out that plastic representations even of the Kāśyapa Buddha, who, as has been shown above, is sometimes mixed up with the Maha-Kāšyapa, are equally rare. The Curzon Museum of Archæology at Muttra has recently acquired an image of the Kāśyapa Buddha, carved in the round, standing on an inscribed pedestal; but the upper half of it is missing. It belongs to the Kushāņa period. The preserved part, from the girdle downwards, shows it wearing a dhoti, a melhalā and a scarf."
1 See his Travels of Fah-Hian and Sung Yun, p. 132 n.; Ind. Anl., Vol. XII, p. 327 f., and his St-Yu-Ki (Buddhist Records of the Western World), Vol. II, p. 95 and n. 32, p. 142 and n. 14,
* Ind. Anl., Vol. XXX, p. 88.
J.A.S.B., Vol. II (1902), pp. 77-83.
. With regard to the identification of the Gurupada-giri, the reader is also referred to Cunnigham's Ancient Geography of India, edited by S. Majumdar Sastri (1924), pp. 526 ff. ad pp. 720 f.; and to N. L. Dey's Geogra. phical Dictionary of Ancient and Mediaval India, under Gurupäda-giri, Kukktapāda-giri, Gurpā-Hill, Kurkihar and Sobhnáth Hill.
See for instance B. C. Law's Rajagriha in Ancient Literature (Memoirs of the 4. 9. I., No. 58), p. 17, • Cunningham's Reports A. 8. 1., Vol. VII. p. 105. Ind. Ant., Vol. XXX, p. 90.
The imago is fully described and the inscription is edited by Mr. V. S. Agrawala in the Journal of the United Provinces Historical Society, December 1937, pp. 35-38 with Plates; and in the Annual Report on the Curzon Museum of Arehæology, Mutfra, for the year ending 31st March 1938, PP. 2, 6, , with Plate.
