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PAT
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PAT
a corruption of Kusumpura, where the king and the wealthy people resided (Mudrdrákshasa. Acte I and VI). Six hundred years after the Mauryas, that is in the early part of the fourth century of the Christian era, the Guptas became kings of Pataliputra. Samudra Gupta (326 to 375 A.D.) removed his capital to Ayodhya, though Pataliputra was still regarded as the official capital. The last king of the dynasty Kumara Gupta II was de. posed and he left Ayodhyâ and resided at Sråvasti (530 to 550 A.D.); and Yasodharman, the general of the Guptas who deposed the monarch, removed the seat of government to Kanyakubja in 530 A.D. and became its king under the name of Vishnuvarddhana. Ac. cording to Dr. Hoernle, he assumed the name of Vikramaditya after defeating the Soy. thians at Karur at 533 A.D., which gave rise to the Samvat era, but according to Dr. Bhandarkar, Mr. V. A. Smith and General Cunningham, Chandragupta II was the celebrated Vikramaditya of Ujjayini (sce Ujjayini). Since that time Pataliputra began to decline and Kanyakubja increased in splendour and became the capital of India. Hiuen Tsiang, who visited India in the seventh century, found Pataliputra as an ordinary village, For further particulars see Patna in Part II of this work. The dynasties from Chandragupta which reigned in Pataliputra were (1) the Mauryas from Chandragupta (for whose life see Dr. Rhys Davids' Buddhist India, p. 259) to Brihadrath (321 B.C. to 188 B.o.) Asoka (272 B.C. to 232 B.O.), the grandson of Chandragupta, ascended the throne on the death of his father Bindusara aftor killing his elder brother Sumana, viceroy of Taksha. sila, and was formally anointed king in the fifth year (Divydvadana, Cowell's ed., chs. 26-28). In the ninth year he became an Upåsaka, in the eleventh year a Bhikshu, and in the thir. teenth year a stąunch follower of Buddhism. In the seventeenth year of his reign, the third Buddhist synod was held at the Asokarama-vihåra in Pataliputra under the presi. dency of Mudgaliputra Tissa, called also Upagupta. Upagupta, however, was the preceptor and chief advisor of Kalasoka called Asoka (see Mathura and Urumunda Parvata). He was sent by Asoka for pointing out to him the sites remarkable for some acts of Buddha on which he oould build the stūpas (Chinese Buddhism, p. 69). (2) The Sungas from Pushpamitra or Pushyamitra to Devabhuti (188 B.C. to 76 B.O.); (3) the Kanvas from Vasudova to Susaraman (76 B.C. to 31 B.C.); (4) the Andhra-bhrityas (Satakarnis or Sta. vahanas of the inscriptions) from Sipra to Gautamiputra (31 B.o. to 312 A.D.), but ao. cording to Dr. Bhandarkar the Andhra-bhrityas reigned from B.C. 50 to 154 A.D.; (5) the Vašishtiputras, according to Fergusson (History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, p. 718), from Puliman, son of Gautamiputra, to Pulomachi, reigned from 333 A.D. to 429 A.D., but the Vagishtiputras and Gautamiputras were merely metronymics (800 V. A. Smith's Early History of India, p. 186). For the Gupta kings and the change of capital, see Magadha. Patna is the birth-place of Guru Govind, the tenth Sikh Guru ; and the house where he was born still exists; he died at Abjalnagar in the Deccan (for a brief account of the Sikh Gurus from Nának to Guru Govind see JASB., 1845, p. 333, and also the Vichitra N ataka, a portion of the Sikh Granth, which is an autobiography of Guru Govind, in JASB., (Vol. XIX, p. 521 ; Vol. XX, p. 487).
The exploration at Kumr&r in 1913 has disclosed the remains of what is called a "Mauryan Hall" with "8 rows of monolithio, polished columns, with at least 10 columns in each row" evidently adorned with "heavy stone sculptures of something over life-size." Dr. Spooner with remarkable ingenuity has shown that this Mauryan Hall was constructed on the model of the Hall of a Hundred Columns or the Throne-room of Darius Hystanpes at Persepolis (see his Zoroastrian Period of Indian Astory in JRAS., 1914 and 1915,
