Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/290

282 SAH fell to the share of his son Lava At the commencement of the historical age, in the sixth century before Christ, we find it still one of the six princi- pal kingdoms of Madhyadesa or Central Hindustan. It was then bounded on the south by Saketa, or Ajodhya, and on the east by Vaishali, the modern Benar and Benares; so it probably contained at least the present districts of Bahraich, Gonda, Basti, and Gorakhpur. The king Parasenájít, who is given in the Vishnu Purana as great grandson of Buddha, and who was very probably connected in race with the princely prophet was an early convert to the new faith, and invited its founder to the Kalandaka Vihara in the Venuvana at Srávasti. Here or in Ajodhya Buddha spent the greater number of the rainy seasons during which he used to rest from his missionary labours, nor did he finally leave the place till he started on that journey to Bengal which ended in his attainment of perfection. During his lifetime Sudatta, the prime minister, built the Jetavana, a mag- nificent monastery whose ruins lie to the south-west of the capital, On the death of Paragenájit his son Virudháka succeeded, and showed himself a bitter enemy to the faith; he crowned many acts of oppression by including 500 Buddhist virgins in his harem. For this was predicted that on the seventh day he should be consumed by fire. To falsify the prophecy, he and his court spent the day on boats on the pond to the south of the city, but the waters fled back, the earth pawned, and the guilty monarch disappeared in a supernatural flame. From this time Srávasti remained one of the principal seats of Buddhist learning, and twelve centuries afterwards the Chinese pilgrim collected with reverence the traditions of his faith which lingered round the sacred city. At the end of the second century, B.C., Rahulata, the sixteenth of the Buddhist patriarchs, died here after having imparted his secret lore to the king's son Sanghanandi, and at the fourth Buddhist Synod convened by the Scythian Emperor Kanishka, the Jetavana, furnished one of the three principal sects of Sthavíras or Buddhist doctors. The greatest political importance ever reached by this state was in the reign of Bikramájít, who, in the middle of the second century A.D., over- threw the mightiest king in India, the Ghaváhana of Kashmir, and as ruler of a vast dominion stretching from Pesháwar to Malva, and from Malva to Bengal, assumed with some show of right the title of emperor of Jambudirpa or the Indian continent. Contrary to the traditions of his capital, he was a bigoted adherent of the Brahmanical religion, and the legends connected with his rebuilding of the sacred places at Ajodhya and Debi Pátan show how low tle fortunes of that creed had fallen in these parts when he lent it his powerful support. Both were a complete jungle, and he restored the localities of the birth of Rama and of his passage to heaven by measure- ments from the Rámáyana. His identifications probably are the base of the topography of the present day, and it is to be hoped that they have not been a source of error to the pious pilgrim. The remains of this monarch's tank and temple still exist at Debi Pátan. His death appears to have been followed by open disputes between the rival faiths, and the story that a distinguished Buddhist Vasubandhu worsted the Brahmans in argument may refer to a more material victory especially as we find that his still more distinguished predecessor Man or Nita had