hurā is mentioned in the Milinda (331) as one of the most famous places in India, whereas in the Buddha's time it is barely mentioned, the time of its greatest growth must have been between these dates. It was sufficiently famous for the other Madhură, in Tinnevelly, first mentioned in the Mahāvansa,' to be named after it. A third Madhura, in the extreme north, is mentioned at Jāt. 4. 79, and Peta Vatthu Vanṇanā, III.

Mithila, the capital of Videha, and the capital therefore of the kings Janaka and Makhadeva, was in the district now called Tirhut. Its size is frequently given as seven leagues, about fifty miles, in circumference.2

Rajagaha, the capital of Magadha, the modern Rajgir. There were two distinct towns; the older one, a hill fortress, more properly Giribbaja, was very ancient, and is said to have been laid out by Mahā Govinda the architect." The later town, at the foot of the hills, was built by Bimbisāra, the contemporary of the Buddha, and is Rājagaha proper. It was at the height of its prosperity during, and immediately after, the Buddha's time. But it was abandoned by Sisunāga, who transferred the capital to Vesali; his son Kālāsoka transferring it to Pataliputta, near the site of the modern Patna. The fortifications of both Giribbaja and Rājagaha are still extant, 4 and 3 miles respectively in circumference; the most southerly point of the walls of

1 Turnour's edition, p. 51. 2 Jāt. 3. 365; 4. 315; 6. 246, etc. 3 Vimāna Vatthu Commentary, p. 82. But compare Digha, xix. 36. 'Bigandet, 2. 115.

Giribbaja, the "Mountain Stronghold," being one mile north of the most northerly point of the walls of the new town of Rajagaha, the "King's House." The stone walls of Giribbaja are the oldest extant stone buildings in India.

Roruka, or in later times Roruva, the capital of Sovira, from which the modern name Surat is derived, was an important centre of the coasting trade.' Caravans arrived there from all parts of India, even from Magadha.' As Ophir is spelt by Josephus and in the Septuagint Sophir, and the names of the ivory, apes, and peacocks imported thence into Palestine are Indian names, it is not improbable that Roruka was the seaport to which the authors of the Hebrew chronicles supposed that Solomon's vessels had traded. For though the more precise name of the port was Roruka, we know from such expressions as that used in the Milinda, p. 29, that the Indians talked about sailing to Sovīra. The exact site has not yet been rediscovered, but it was almost certainly on the Gulf of Kach, somewhere near the modern Kharragoa. When its prosperity declined, its place was taken by Bharukaccha, the modern. Bharoch, or by Suppāraka, both on the opposite, the southern, side of the Kathiawad peninsula.

Sagala. There were three cities of this name. But the two in the far East' were doubtless named (even if the readings in the MSS. are correct, and I doubt them in both cases) after the famous Sāgala

1 Dīgha, xix. 36; Jāt. 3. 470.

2 Vimāna, V. A. 370; Divy. 544.

3 Jat. 5. 337, and Com. on Therī Gāthā, p. 127.

in the extreme north-west, which offered so brave a resistance to Alexander, and where King Milanda afterwards reigned. It lay about 32° N. by 74° E., and was the capital of the Maddas. Cunningham thought he had found the ruins of it; but no excavations have been carried out, and the exact site is still therefore uncertain.

Saketa, the site of which has been indentified with the ruins, as yet unexplored, at Sujān Kot, on the Sai River, in the Unao district of the modern province of Audh. In ancient times it was an important city in Kosala, and sometimes the capital.' In the Buddha's time the capital was Sāvatthi. Sāketa is often supposed to be the same as Ayojjhā (Oudh),' but both cities are mentioned as existing in the Buddha's time. They were possibly adjoining, like London and Westminster. But it is Saketa, and not Ayojjhā, that is called one of the six great cities of India. The Añjana Wood near by Sāketa is the place at which many of the Buddhist Suttas are said to have been spoken. The distance from Saketa northwards to Savatthi was six leagues, about fortyfive miles, and could be covered in one day with seven relays of horses." But there was a broad river on the way, only to be crossed by ferry; and there are constant references to the dangers of the journey on foot.

1 Führer, Monumental Antiquities of N. W. Provinces and Oudh, P. 275.

? Mahāvastu, 1. 348; Jāt. 3. 270.

E. g. Cunningham's Ancient Geography, p. 405.

4 Rh. D., Buddhist Suttas, p. 99.

5 Vinaya Texts, 2. 147.

6 Majjhima, I. 149.

Savatthi, or Srāvasti, was the capital of Northern Kosala, the residence of King Pasenadi, and one of the six great cities in India during the lifetime of the Buddha. Archæologists differ as to its position; and the decision of this vexed point is one of the first importance for the early history of India, as there must be many inscriptions there. It was six leagues north of Saketa,' forty-five leagues north-west of Rājagaha, more than one hundred north-east of Suppāraka, thirty leagues from Sankassa,* and on the bank of the Achiravati."

2

3

Ujjeni, the capital of Avanti, the Greek Ozēnē, about 77° E. and 23° N. There Kaccana, one of the leading disciples of the Buddha, and also Asoka's son Mahinda, the famous apostle to Ceylon, were born. In later times there was a famous monastery there called the Southern Mount; and in earlier times the capital had been Mähissati." Vedisa, where the famous Bhilsa Topes were lately found, and Erakaccha, another well-known site, were in the vicinity. Vedisa was fifty leagues from Pāṭaliputta.'

Vesali. This was the capital of the Licchavi clan, already closely related by marriage to the kings of Magadha, and the ancestors of the kings of Nepal, of the Mauryas, and of the dynasty of the Guptas. It was the headquarters of the powerful Vajjian con

federacy, afterwards defeated, but not broken up, by Ajātasattu. It was the only great city in all the territories of the free clans who formed so important a factor in the social and political life of the sixth century B.C. It must have been a great and flourishing place. But though different guesses have been made as to its site, no one of them has yet been proved to be true by excavation. It was somewhere in Tirhut; and just three leagues, or, say, twenty-five miles, north of the Ganges, reckoned from a spot on the bank of that river, five leagues, say thirty-eight miles, from Rājagaha.' Behind it lay the Great Forest, the Mahāvana, which stretched northwards to the Himalayas. In that wood a hermitage had been built by the community for the Buddha, and there many of his discourses were delivered. And in an adjoining suburb, the founder of the Jains, who was closely related to some of the leading chiefs, was born. We hear of its three walls, each of them a gávuta, a cow's call, distant from the next; and of the 7707 rājas, that is Licchavi chiefs, who dwelt there'; and of the sacred pool in which they received their consecration." There were many shrines of pre-Buddhistic worship in and around the city, and the discovery and excavation of the site is most desirable.

The same may indeed be said of all these ancient cities. Not one of them has been properly excavated. The archæology of India is, at present, an almost unworked field.

1 Dhammapala on S. N., 2. 1.

3 Ib. 1. 504.

4 Ib. 1. 504, 3. I.

2 Jātaka, 1. 389.

5 lb. 4. 148.