________________
Rajgir is likely to see more development in the near future to make it an attractive tourist centre.
After the death of Buddha (nearabout 487 B. C. ) the first great Buddhist Council was held in the Satta panni cave at Rajgir to fix the main principles of Buddhist faith.
The Sattapanni hall has been identified by General Cunningham with the Sonbhandar Cave. This cave is in the southern scrap of the Vaibhara Hill, about a mile from the Pippala stone-house. It measures 34 ft. x 7 ft. and contains a door-way and a window 6 ft. 6 inches x 3 ft. 4 inches and 3 ft. x 2 ft. 6 inches respectively.
The identification of General Cunningham was open to criticism. All the old authorities agree that the Sattapanni hall was situated on the northern face of the hill. Beglar differed from Cunningham and identified this and the neighbouring caves with the caves of Buddha and Ananda. There is an inscription and in the light of the inscription both the theories may be dismissed for the excavation of the cave is ascribed to one Muni Vaira Deva, who enshrined in it the images of the Arbats or Jain Tirthankars. The Jain epithet "Muni" as against the Buddhist “Bhikshu” is significant and the cave, it appears, was a Jain sanctuary. There is also a very faint outline of the lower half of a small male figure in nudity close to the inscription and that also suggests close association with Jainism.
By the right side of the doorway leading to the cave is a Sanskrit inscription of two lines in the Upajati metre in characters of the 3rd or 4th century A. D. The meaning of the lines will be that Muni Vaira Deva had set up the two caves worthy of ascetics and placed the images of Arhats in them.
Incidentally it may be mentioned here that the question of location of Sattapanni cave which was taken up by General Cunningham and Beglar was studied by Dr. Stein in 1899. The caves which Dr. Stein fixed upon as the traditional site 92
