RAJGIR: AN ANCIENT BABYLON 49
would be built, in all probability, even as the huts of the Rajgir pilgrims are to this day, of mud and pebbles, instead of lordly stone. From hillocks formed of such deposits, anyone may pick out by the streamside, at various different levels, bits of old household pottery. But the facings and tops of the shops and houses were doubtless of carved wood, and the front of the cathedral was a faithful enough reflex of the life of the town. Through such streets, while the king stood watching him from the roof of the palace, paced the Sakya Prince, "a lad in his first youth," ere yet he was Buddha, and no honour that Bimbisara could offer would tempt him from that bridal of Poverty in which alone his mind delighted. "This life of the household is pain, free only is he who lives in the open air " ; thinking thus he embraced the life of the wandering monk.
Far away from Rajgir, in the north of Rajputana, we have Amber and Jaipur, a couple of cities which every visitor to India tries to see. Of these. Amber is situated in the highlands, and Jaipur out in the plain. Amber being, of course, very much the older of the two. It is in fact an old Indian doctrine that no city should occupy the same ground for more than a thousand years. It is supposed that a potent means of avoiding pestilence and other ills is then to move out and occupy a new space. In accordance with this canon the new city of Jaipur was laid out. And when all was finished, the Maharaja moved into the new town with all his people.
