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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
The following dissertation is the second in my series of “Prolegomena to Ancient Indian History,” of which the first was the essay entitled “The Iron Pillar of Delhi (Mihraulī) and the Emperor Candra (Chandra)” published in this Journal in January, 1897. The article entitled “Samudra Gupta,” published, in the same number of the Journal, gives in narrative form the history of the Emperor Samudra Gupta. The present paper is devoted to the detailed technical discussion of the authorities for the statements of that narrative. I may perhaps be pardoned for inviting attention to the proposed identification of King Acyuta; the justification of the reading Mahendragiri as a king's name; the probable identification of the kings Viṣṇugōpa and Hastivarman; the certain identification of the kingdom of Pālakka; the suggested identifications of the kingdoms of Devarāṣṭra and Kustbalapura; the probable identification of King Candravarman; the location of the Ābhīra tribe; and the attempted identification and differentiation of the Ṣāhi, Ṣāhānuṣāhi, and Daivaputra kings.
page 860 note 1 It is, I hope, hardly necessary now to repeat the proof that Pāṭaliputra was the capital of the first and second Gupta emperors. The subject has been fully discussed in my various publications on the Gupta coinage. (J.A.S.B., vol. liii, part 1, 1884, pp. 156–163; J.R.A.S. 1889, pp. 55, 56; J.R.A.S. 1893, p. 86. See also Bühler, , “On the Gupta and Valabhi Era,” p. 13.)Google Scholar
The limits of the dominions of Candra Gupta I are deduced from the details of the conquests effected by his successors, and the language of the Purāṇas, which state that the Gupta territory extended from Magadha (Bihār) along the Ganges to Prayāga, and included Sāketa (Wilson's, “Vishnu Purāṇa,” 4to edition, p. 479)Google Scholar. The Purānic definition is altogether inapplicable to the extended empire of Samudra Gupta, and to the still vaster dominions of his son and successor, Candra Gupta II. It can only be applied to the reign of Candra Gupta I, the earliest emperor, and to the beginning of the reign of his successor. The eastern limit of Magadha seems to have lain in the neighbourhood of Campā (Bhāgalpur).
The site of Sāketa has not been satisfactorily determined. The confident identification by Cunningham, (“Reports,” vol. i, p. 317)Google Scholar of Sāketa with Ayodhya, the ancient Hindu city near Fyzabad, is demonstrably erroneous, and has been justly criticized by Fergusson, (“Archaeology in India,” appendix B. Trubner & Co., London, 1884)Google Scholar. Dr. Führer's identification with Saňchānkot (Sujānkot, Rāmkoṭ) in the Unāo District of Oudh is not proved, though not, perhaps, impossible (“Monumental Antiquities and Inscriptions in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh,” p. 275). Fergusson was convinced that Lucknow itself is the true representative of Sāketa, and I agree with him that the site of Sāketa must be looked for at or near Lucknow. A full explanation of the reasons for this opinion would require a long dissertation. The general course of the argument is indicated by Fergusson.
page 861 note 1 Fleet's translation of this passage is as follows:—“(1. 13)—By whom, —having unassisted, with the force of the prowess of (his) arm that rose up so as to pass all bounds, uprooted Achyuta and Nâgasêna ….—(by whom), causing him who was born in the family of the Kôtas to be captured by (his) armies, (and) taking his pleasure at (the city) that had the name of Pushpa, while the sun …. the banks ….;—” (“Gupta Inscriptions,” p. 12).
page 864 note 1 Indian Antiquary, xxii, pp. 181, 182.
page 865 note 1 Cunningham gives the erroneous date of a.d. 481 for Yayātikesarin, which I have omitted in my quotation with reference to Dr. Fleet's observation that “the date of Yayātikesarin, derived from the Orissa records, is altogether unreliable, and is too early by at least about four centuries” (“Gupta Inscriptions,” p. 294).
page 865 note 2 Cunningham, , “Archaeological Reports,” xvii, p. 68Google Scholar. The words which I have omitted are “the great district of Vākātaka on the west, comprising—.” Cunningham supposed that the country Vakātaka is represented by the modern Bhāndak in the Chāndā district, but Dr. Fleet shows that this identification is a philological impossibility. He further shows that the adjectival name Vākātaka (derived from Vakāta) is properly the name of a people or tribe, and could only be used secondarily as the name of a country. The passages in which the name has been supposed to denote a country do not bear the construction put on them (“Gupta Inscriptions,” p. 234).
page 866 note 1 “So far as I have been able to follow up the enquiry, all evidence seems to point to Sirpur (or Śripura), on the Mahānadī, as the ancient capital of the country. It is situated on the largest river in the province; it possesses the oldest inscriptions now existing in the country; it is said by the people to have been the capital of Babhruvāhan, one of the earliest known kings of Chedi; while its extensive ruins prove that it must at one time have been a large city.” (Cunningham, , op. cit., p. 70Google Scholar; Tivaradeva's grant is No. 81 of Fleet, p. 296.)
page 867 note 1 Ind. Ant., xxii, pp. 180–1.
page 867 note 2 Sewell, , “Lists of Antiquities, Madras,” i, 240Google Scholar; ii, 195. Balfour, “Cyclopaedia of India,” s.v. ‘Kerala’ and ‘Malabar.’
The inscription actually and unmistakably reads Kaurāḻ.aka-Manṭarāja, but Dr. Fleet is probably right in emending Kaurāḻaka to Kairaḻaka in order to make sense. The mistake seems a purely clerical one (“Gupta Inscriptions,” p. 7, note 1). Keraḻa is said to mean the land of cocoanuts. The rare southern ḻ is used in the inscription. The word Kaurāḻaka, if correct, would imply the existence of a country named Kurāḻa, and none such is known. It is, however, just possible that some region was named Kuraḻa fifteen centuries ago.
page 868 note 1 “Gupta Inscriptions,” p. 7, note 2. Sewell, , “Lists,” ii, 262Google Scholar, and i, 23.
page 868 note 2 “Progress Report of Archaeological Survey, Madras,” Nos. 728, 729, dated Sept. 28, 1894.
page 869 note 1 “Bundelkhand Gazetteer” (Allahabad, 1874), pp. 36, 31Google Scholar.
page 870 note 1 “Letters from a Mahratta Camp,” Constable's edition, p. 95.
page 870 note 2 Sewell, , “Lists,” i, 249, 273Google Scholar; Ind. Ant., xx, 69.
page 871 note 1 Sewell, , “Lists,” i, 214, 222Google Scholar, and references; Thurston, , “Catalogue of Coins in Government Central Museum, Madras, No. 2,” pp. 7–11, 21Google Scholar. Coins of Tiberius (a.d. 14–37) appear to be specially abundant.
page 871 note 2 Sewell, , “Lists,” i, 202Google Scholar, and Index.
page 871 note 3 Sewell, , “Lists,” i, 176Google Scholar; ii, 264.
page 871 note 4 Beal, , “Buddhist Records of the Western World,” ii, 228Google Scholar.
page 872 note 1 Ind. Ant., v, 50; “South-Indian Inscriptions,” ii, 343.
page 872 note 2 Ind. Ant., vi, 22, 30, note.
page 872 note 3 Balfeur's “Cyclopaedia,” s.v. Vengi. Sewell, , “Lists,” i, 36Google Scholar; ii, 239.
page 873 note 1 Ind. Ant., v, 175; ix, 99–103.
page 873 note 2 Hultzsch, , “On the Grant of Bhaskara Ravīvarma”: Ind. Ant., xx, 285, 289, 291Google Scholar.
page 873 note 3 Balfour, “Cyclopaedia,” s.v. ‘Palghatcherry.’
page 874 note 1 Indrajī, Bhagvānlāl, “The Inscription of RudradSman at Junāgaḍh” (Ind. Ant., vii, 259)Google Scholar. Benfey, (“Dictionary”), referring to Mahābhārata 2, 614Google Scholar, notes that the name occurs both in the neuter and feminine forms.
For the omission of the syllable, compare “Kuraghara, which appears five times, I would identify with the village of Kuraraghara.… Kura-raghara is, of course, the etymologically correct form of the name, and Kuraghara a corruption by a kind of haplophony, which occurs more frequently in geographical and other names.” (Bühler, , “Inscriptions of Sanchi Stūpa,” Epigraphia Indica, ii, 96.)Google Scholar
page 875 note 1 Elphinstone, 5th edition, p. 396.
page 876 note 1 “Coins of Ancient India,” p. 89; “Catalogue of Coins in Lahore Museum,” part iii, 128; “Catalogue of Coins in Indian Museum,” iii, 32.
page 876 note 2 “Coins of Ancient India,” p. 88; J.R.A.S. for July, 1894, p. 541; “Catalogue of Coins in Lahore Museum,” iii, 122; “Catalogue of Coins in Indian Museum,” iii, 31.
page 876 note 3 Proc. A.S.B. for 1895, p. 177.
page 877 note 1 Cunningham, , “Reports,” ii, 307–310Google Scholar; “Coins of Mediaeval India,” pp. 21–4.
page 877 note 2 DrFleet, (p. 14, note 1) needlessly, as it seems to me, suggests that an ambiguity lurks in the term “frontier kings” (pratyanta-ṉṛpati)Google Scholar. I think it plain that the meaning is that which has been adopted in the text.
page 878 note 1 Ind. Ant., xxii, 189.
page 878 note 2 Rennell, , “A Bengal Atlas,” p. 3Google Scholar.
page 878 note 3 Beal, , “Records,” ii, 199, 200Google Scholar.
page 878 note 4 Cunningham, , “Reports,” xv, 146Google Scholar.
page 879 note 1 Balfour, “Cyclopaedia,” s.v. ‘Sunderbans.’
page 879 note 2 Martin, , “Eastern India,” iii, 403, 626 seqqGoogle Scholar.; Balfour, “Cyclopaedia,” s.v. ‘Assam,’ ‘Kāmarūpa,’ and ‘Kāmrūp.’
page 880 note 1 Beal, , “Records,” ii, 195Google Scholar.
page 880 note 2 The references are given by Beal, , “Records,” ii, 194Google Scholar, note.
page 880 note 3 J.A.S.B., vol. xxii (1853), p. 281; ibid., part 1, vol. lxii (1893), pp. 315–325.
page 880 note 4 Beal, , “Records,” ii, 200Google Scholar, note. Fa-hian stayed two years at Tamlūk, and sailed thence for Ceylon (ch. xxxvii).
page 880 note 5 Aśoka pillars have been recently discovered at Niglīva, the site of Kapila-vastu, and Rummindeī, the site of the Lumbinī Garden, the birthplace of Gautama Buddha, north of the Bastī District. There is a tradition that the valley of Nepāl was included in the dominions of Aśoka. (Führer, , “Progress Report for 1895,” p. 2Google Scholar; Oldfield, , “Sketches in Nīpal,” pp. 246–9.)Google Scholar Other pillars are believed to exist north of the Gorakhpur District.
page 881 note 1 Beal, , “Records,” ii, 80Google Scholar.
page 882 note 1 Ind. Ant., xxii, 184.
page 883 note 1 “Coins of Ancient India,” p. 99.
page 884 note 1 The references for the coins are: Cunningham, , “Eeports,” vi, 165, 174 seqqGoogle Scholar.; xiv, pp. 149–151, pi. xxxi, Nos. 19–25; “Coins of Ancient India,” pp. 95, 96; “Catalogue of the Coins of the Indian Museum” (Rodgers), part iii, pp. 15–27, pl. ii. A few of the coins classed by the Catalogue as Mālava are really Nāga coins, e.g. Nos. 12,461 and 12,462 on page 26.
page 884 note 2 146 grains seem to be the true weight of the paṇa, rather than 144, the figure adopted by Cunningham.
page 884 note 3 This is Fleet's interpretation of the words ganasthiti-vaśāt, but Kielhorn takes them as simply meaning “according to the reckoning of.”
page 885 note 1 These inscriptions are discussed by Fleet, , “Gupta Inscriptions,” Intr. p. 67Google Scholar; pp. 79, 150; and by Kielhorn, , Ind. Ant., xx, 404Google Scholar.
page 886 note 1 One of the coins is very clearly engraved in Prinsep's, “Essays” (Thomas), pl. xliv, 2Google Scholar. Cunningham, had another specimen, which is badly figured in “Coins of Ancient India,” pl. viii, 20Google Scholar. A specimen in the cabinet of the Asiatic Society of Bengal may be that figured by Prinsep.
page 887 note 1 Bhandarkar, in Ind. Ant., i, 23Google Scholar.
page 887 note 2 Cunningham, , “Reports,” xiv, 140Google Scholar.
page 887 note 3 “sarvva-kṣatrāviṣkṛta-vīra śabda” (Ind. Ant., vii, 262).
page 888 note 1 Bühler agrees with Cunningham, in this interpretation (“Origin of Brahmī Alphabet,” p. 46)Google Scholar.
page 888 note 2 The best published account of the Yaudheya coins is that in Cunningham's, “Reports,” xiv, 139–145Google Scholar. The account in “Coins of Ancient India,” pp. 75–9, is more confused, but the plate in that work is better than that of the “Reports.” I possess a fine set of Yaudheya coins. The seals, or votive tablets, are described by Hoernle in Proc. A.S.B. for 1884, p. 137.
page 889 note 1 Ind. Ant., xxii, 183.
page 889 note 2 Cunningham's, arguments in favour of his identification of Sākala with the petty hill Sangala Tibba will be found in “Reports,” ii, 192–200Google Scholar. Those arguments were avowedly opposed to the data given both by the historians of Alexander and by Hiuen Tsiang, and have recently been conclusively refuted by Mr. C. J. Rodgers (Proc. A.S.B., June, 1896). I am indebted to that gentleman for the information that either Chuniot or Shāhkoṣ is probably the true site of Sākala. The formidable White Hun chief Mihirakula is known to have resided at Sākala, and his coins are numerous at both Chunioṭ and Shāhkoṭ. I possess a good set collected by Mr. Rodgers at those places.
Cunningham quotes Lassen for the mention of the Madra tribe in the Mahābhārata.
page 890 note 1 No. 12, “Buddhist Cave Temples” (Archaeological Survey of Western India, vol. iv), p. 104, pl. liii. This inscription of the Ābhīra king Īśvarasena may date from about a.d. 200.
page 890 note 2 Quoted in Elliot's “Races of the North-Western Provinces” (ed. Beames), s.v. ‘Ahīr.’
page 890 note 3 See Beames, op. cit., and the Gazetteer of the Mirzāpur District, s.v. ‘Ahraura.’
page 891 note 1 Cunningham, , “Reports,” ii, 300Google Scholar. The italics are mine.
page 892 note 1 SirElliot, W., “Coins of Southern India” (Intern. Num. Or., vol. iii part 2), pp. 36, 89Google Scholar; and the authorities cited in the notes.
page 893 note 1 The name occurs in inscriptions of the Aśoka, period (“Gupta Inscriptions,” p. 31Google Scholar; Epigraphia Indica, ii, 87, 366, 396).
page 893 note 2 The spelling Sanakānīka is used in the Allahabad inscription, and the spelling Sanakānika in the Udayagiri inscription dated G.E. 82 in the reign of Candra Gupta II (“Gupta Inscriptions,” p. 25). At that date the Sanakānika chief had become a subject of the empire.
page 894 note 1 The meaning of “Garuḍa-tokens” (garudmat-aṅka) is obscure. Fleet supposes it to refer to gold coins, bearing, among other emblems, a representation of the Garuḍa standard, the Gupta equivalent of the Roman eagle. I believe that the term is used in the sense of “standards.”
page 894 note 2 I formerly treated the allusion to Ceylon as “mere rhetoric,” but think the interpretation now placed on the passage is preferable.
page 895 note 1 Ind. Ant., xv, 142.
page 896 note 1 Beal, , “Records,” ii, 90Google Scholar. The note quotes Mahābhārata, vii, 4,847, besides Cunningham, Reinaud, and Lassen.
page 896 note 2 “La Sakastène ou le Sakastân tirait Son nom des Sakas, qui avaient occupé toute l'ancienne Arachosie, et peut-être aussi la vallée du Kaboul, pendant le premier siècle avant notre ère; ils en avaient été chassés par lea Kouchans vers I'an 30 av. J.-C., mais le nom de la contrée y avait été conservé, et il est resté jusq'à nos jours sous la forme Seïstân (Sagastène, Segistân, Sedjistân). Les grands Yue-tehi en ont été maîtres pendant plusieurs siècles. D'après Agatbias, le Sakastan fut conquis sur eux par Bahrain II (276–294), qui conféra le titre de sakanshah on prince des Sakas à son fils Bahrain II.
“L'historien latin Vopiscus nous dit qu'au moment où Carus [emperor a.d. 282–3] traversa l'Euphrate dans sa guerre contre les Perses, Bahrain II était occupé sur les frontières de l'lnde, c'est à dire de I'Afghanistan et du Kaboul. Le Sakastan, ainsi enlevé aux Kouchans, resta en la possession des Sassanides.” —Drouin, , “Monnaies des grands Kouchans”: Rev. Num. 1896, p. 160Google Scholar. M. Drouin quotes Isidorus in edition of C. Müller, sec. 18. I have not been able to verify the reference to this author.
page 897 note 1 Cunningham gives the erroneous date “about a.d. 160.” See McCrindle's edition of the “Periplus.”
page 897 note 2 Cunningham, (“Reports,” ii, 47)Google Scholar believed that “the Su or Śakas, being the descendants of Scytho-Parthian Dahae, were not distinguishable from true Parthians either in speech, manners, or in dress. Their names also were the same as those of the Parthians.”
page 897 note 3 J.R.A.S. 1894, p. 549. “The Northern Kshatrapas.” The coins of these Satraps are also discussed in “Coins of Ancient India,” pp. 85–90, pl. viii. But the published accounts of the coins are far from exhaustive.
page 898 note 1 J.R.A S. 1894, “The Mathurā Lion Pillar Inscriptions,” pp. 530, 531, 540. Sakastana (Śakasthāna) is identical with the Sakastene of Isidorus.
page 898 note 2 The coins of the Northern Satrapa, many of Which I possess, are all of early date, and probably none are later than a.d. 100. An inscription of the reign of Candra Gupta II dated g.e. 82 (=a.d. 400) has been found at Mathurā, (“Gupta Inscriptions,” p. 25)Google Scholar, and another inscription dated “in the fifty-seventh year” is probably to be referred to the Gupta era (Bühler, , Epigraphia Indica, ii, 198, 210)Google Scholar. If this is correct, the date will fall in the reign of Samudra Gupta.
page 899 note 1 Ind. Ant., xiv, 259; xxii, 189.
page 899 note 1 Ṛṣabhadatta's Nāsik inscription, No. 5, names the rivers Ibā, Pārādā, Damaṇa, Tāpī, Karabena, and Dāhanukā. The Pārādā is the Pāradī, or Pār, river in the Sūrat District (“Archaeological Survey of “Western India,” iv, 100, note 2).
page 899 note 3 Cunningham, , “Reports,” ix, 77Google Scholar.
page 899 note 4 “Vishnu Purāṇa” (ed. Wilson), B. iv, ch. iii, vol. iii, p. 294; quoted by Fleet, in Ind. Ant., xxii, 185Google Scholar.
page 899 note 5 Manu, x, 44; quoted in “Archaeological Survey of Western India,” iii, 55, note.
page 900 note 1 Indrajī, Bhagvānlāl and Rapson, , “The Western Kshatrapas,” in J.R.A.S. 1890, Vol. XXII, n.s., p. 640Google Scholar.
page 900 note 2 “Archaeological Survey of Western India,” iv, pp. 101 (note 3), 104, 109, 114.
page 901 note 1 J.R.A.S. 1890, p. 644.
page 901 note 2 Ind. Ant., vii, 258, 259, 262. Dr. Bühler identifies the various countries named.
page 902 note 1 J.R.A.S. 1890, p. 661.
page 902 note 2 Num. Chron. 1893, p. 176; “Reports,” iii, 42.
page 902 note 3 M. Drouin takes the same view, and writes: “Les souverains qui les ont émises [scil, monnaies] sont ceux que Samudra-Gupta a vaincus vers l'an 390 de J.-C, et qui sont désignes sur le pillier d'Allâhâbâd sous ies noms de Daiva-putras, Shâhis, Shâhânushdhis, et Sakas” (“Monnaies des Grands Kouchans,” in Rev. Num. 1896, p. 158). I do not think that the word vaincus is justified by the terms of the inscription, or by the probabilities of the situation.
page 903 note 1 “We find a late, but very distinct, reminiscence of these Scythic titles in the Jain legend of Kālakācarya, which calls the princes of the Śakas—the protectors of the saint—Ṣāhi, and their sovereign lord Ṣāhānuṣāhi.”—Stein, , “Zoroastrian Deities on Indo-Scythian Coins” (Ind. Ant., xvii, 95Google Scholar; quoting Jacobi, in Zeitschrift of German Or. Soc, vol. xxxiv, p. 255)Google Scholar.
page 903 note 2 “A Record of the Buddhist Religion,” by I-tsing (ed. Takakusu, , Oxford, 1896), p. 136, note 3Google Scholar. The Chinese influence on Northern India in the early centuries of the Christian era was considerable.
page 904 note 1 Epigraphia Indica, i, p. 382, inscription No. 1.
page 904 note 2 Ibid., ii, p. 206, Nos. xxv and xxvi.
page 904 note 3 Ibid., ii, p. 369; a Sānci inscription.
page 904 note 4 Chapters x–xii.
page 904 note 5 Beal, , “Records,” i, 97Google Scholar.
page 905 note 1 These coins of the so-called Later Indo-Scythians, or Later Great Kuṣāns, are descrihed and discussed by Cunningham, (Numismatic Chronicle for 1893, pp. 112 seqq.)Google Scholar; Smith, V. A. (Journ. As. Soc. Bengal for 1897, part i, p. 5)Google Scholar; Drouin, E. (Revue Numism. for 1896, p. 154)Google Scholar. Drouin, M. observes (p. 160): “La capitale ou une des capitales des grands Yue-tchi ou grands Kouchans (car ce vaste empire, qui s'étendait encore, à l'époque Sassanide, de la mer Caspienne à l'lndus, devait avoir plusieurs résidences royales) était Kâboul.”Google Scholar
page 905 note 2 Alberuni, , “Indica” (Sachau's translation, ii, 10Google Scholar; quoted by Stein, “Zur Geschichte der Çāhis von Kābul”). The last of the Turkish Ṣāhi kings of Kābul was Laga-Tūrmān. These kings were succeeded by a Hindu dynasty, who also took the title of Ṣāhi, and lasted till A.D. 1021 (A.H. 412), when Trilocanapāla was killed. See also “Coins of Mediaeval India,” p. 55. Cunningham follows Thomas in reading Al Kitormān instead of Laga-Tūrmān. In Kāśmīr the title Ṣāhi lingered till a.d. 1100. Cunningham saya that Trilo-canapāla was alive in a.d. 1027 (V.S. 1084).
page 906 note 1 Num. Chron. 1893, p. 199, pl. vi (xv), 1, 2.
page 907 note 1 Op. cit., p. 184. The italics are mine.
page 907 note 2 This is the date adopted by Stein, in his pamphlet “Zur Geschichte der Cāhis von Kābul,” p. 4 (Stultgart, 1893)Google Scholar. He quotes Von Gutschmid, “Geschichte Irān's.” Cunningham, (op. cit., p. 184)Google Scholar takes the date as a.d. 425–130.
page 908 note 1 Cunningham's, readings and translations (Num. Chron. 1893, p. 179Google Scholar, pi. xiii (iv), figs. 2, 6) are corrected by Drouin, M. (“Monnaies des grands Kouchans,” Rev. Num. 1896, p. 163)Google Scholar. Neither Horraazd nor any other Sassanian sovereign was ever “king of kings of the Kuṣāns,” and Hormazd, consequently, could not have assumed that title, as Cunningham supposed him to have done. The late historian Mirkhond, or Khondamīr (Rehatsek's translation, ii, 340), is the only writer who mentions the marriage of Hormazd with the Kuṣān princess, but, as M. Drouin observes, the coins prove that Mīrkhond had good authority for his statement. I have not had the opportunity of verifying the reference to Mīrkhond. The Basana coin has been published by the writer in J.A.S.B. 1897.
page 908 note 2 Num. Chron. 1893, pp. 169–177. Gibbon (ch. xix) gives a.d. 360 as the date of the siege of Amida; Cunningham adopts the date a.d. 358. Gibbon notes a certain amount of confusion in the chronology of the original authority, Ammianus. Drouin gives a.d. 359.
page 910 note 1 Kauśāmbi is usually identified with Kosam, a village about twenty-eight miles west of Allahabad. The identification is in this sense correct that Kosam has been believed by local residents since at least a.d. 1824 to be the ancient Kauśāmbi, (Epigraphia Indica, ii, 244)Google Scholar. But Kosam is not the Kauśāmbi visited by Hiuen Tsiang, which lay much farther south. Bharhut corresponds fairly well with the position of Kauśāmbi as described by Hiuen Tsiang. The proof of these observations, which attack a cherished belief, must be reserved for another Prolegomenon.