(vide his Hindu Theatre, Volume II, preface to the Mudra Râkshasa; also in Turnour’s Mahâwanso, preface, appendix).
The position of Patna as being on, or at least very near, the site of Pâṭaliputra is too well established to be shaken by this, and against this position the objection is invalid. But as in the vicinity of Patna several rivers join and did join the Ganges, the argument maintains its full force against the identification of the Erranoboas with the Son; had there been but one river joining the Ganges, it would be clear that the two were both names of the same river; as it is, no less than four tributaries join and did join the Ganges not far from Patna, any one of which, except the Sarayu, would fulfil the condition of having its confluence near Patna, but one only of which at this moment rigidly fulfils the condition of having its confluence with the Ganges, not near, but at Patna, and this is the Gandak.
Mr. Ravenshaw (Journal, Asiatic Society, volume XIV, page 137) has attempted to prove by very plausible arguments that the Son and Erranoboas are identical, and the facts on which he bases his inferences are perfectly correct. A wide, light sandy expanse, now under cultivation, may be traced from a point near Saidabad viâ Bikram to Naubatpur, but from this place the traces on to Phulwâri are not those of a great river like the Son, as Mr. Ravenshaw supposes, but of a small stream; and so far from Bânkipur having once been the bed of the mighty Son, three miles in width, there is the most indubitable evidence of its never having within historical times been the bed of any river even of ordinary magnitude. A short time ago, on the occasion of a well being dug in the Bânkipur Jail, stiff clay and kankar were found down to a depth of 44 feet from the present surface. A second well, sunk at a village named Sipara on the Patna branch road, about one and a half miles south of Bânkipur, and which on reference to the map will be found to be almost in the middle of the so-called bed of the Son, had to be abandoned, as water had not been reached at a depth of about 35 feet.
The site of Bânkipur itself is indeed one of the highest points in the district, and this may be most easily verified by observing the heights of the railway embankments from Patna to the present Son Bridge: so is Dinapur; and this may indeed have been inferred from the very circumstance of these sites having been chosen for the British civil and military stations in the district. Not merely, however, are these two points high, but the whole country between, and
