________________ 38 Homage to Vaisali Scholars carried on their researches for several decades and are now unanimous in identifying this present site with Vaisali. Just outside Vaisali lay the suburb Kundagrama-probably surviving in the modern village of Basukunda. Siddhartha was living here. He was married to Trisala, sister of Cetaka, the Licchavi Republican President. Mahavira or Vardhamana was born to them at this palce. Buddhist Jatakas give some interesting details about Vaisali. It is described as a city with three walls, each of them a gavuta, a cow's call, distant from the next and it is said that 7707 Rajas were living inside the city and they received their consecration in a sacred pool of water. There were many shrines of pre-Buddhistic worship in and around the city, and the discovey and excavation of the site is most desirable. Professor Rhys Davids bitterly complains of the inadequate efforts hitherto made by the Archaeological Department in this matter. He says: "The same may indeed be said of all these ancient cities. Not one of them has been properly excavated. The archaeology of India is, at present, an almost unworked field." Let us all hope that this state of things will change hereafter inasmuch as those who are administering the country are greatly alive to the importance and necessity of this kind of work in the interests of Indian bistory and proper understanding of Indian culture. I appreciate most heartily the efforts that are being made by the Vaisali Sangha in this direction. It is a patriotic work which deserves to be liberally patronised by all millionaires and I feel that ere long they will be able to successfully carry out the programme which is laid down by this Sangha in defining its aims and objects. I thank you once more before I resume my seat.
