Report of a Tour through the Bengal Provinces/Bathani Hill
BATHANI HILL.
A short way south of Gowror is Bathan or Bathani hill and village. The hill is a small conical one and quite isolated; it is about 5 or 6 miles to the west of the entrance of the valley of old Râjagriha. Buddhist legends say that Buddha, travelling from Kapila to Râjgir before attaining the Buddhahood, entered Râjgir by the east gate, and, having collected alms, went to the Banthawa hill to eat the food he had collected. The hill is named Pandhawa (Spence Hardy, p. 163) in the Ceylon records, and Banthawa in the Siamese records (Alabaster, p. 136), both names bearing a close resemblance to the name Bathan of the solitary hill noticed. But against this identification is the distinct statement made in both the Burmese and Siamese versions, that Buddha left the city of Râjgir by the same gate he had entered, viz., the east gate (Spence Hardy does not say anything regarding the gate by which he left the city). If, as stated, Buddha left the city by the east gate, which could only have been the one leading through the long ravine to the Panchâna river, near Gidha Dwâra, Bathan could hardly have been the hill he went to to eat his meal, as it would have been a distance not of 6 but of over 18 miles by that circuitous route. I content myself by simply noting the close similarity of name and the objections to its identification with Bathawa hill.
There is mention in the Mahábhárata, ch. 20, ver. 30, of a hill named Gorath. Bhima, Arjuna, and Krishna, when going to Girivraja to slay Jarâsandha, came, as before noticed, viâ Vaisâli, and, crossing the Ganges and the Son, arrived in the kingdom of Magadha; then "ascending the Goratha hill, they saw the beautiful capital of the Magadha kingdom." The names "Goratha" and "Bathan" are both connected with cattle, and as there is no hill near enough to Râjgir besides the Bathan hill, the inference is obvious that the hill named Goratha in the Mahábhárata is the same as the present Bathani hill. I accordingly consider that the ancient name of the hill was "Goratha," meaning cattle-ear. "Bathan" in Hindi means a cattle-pen, a place where cattle are kept.