p. 439

            The kindness  of Dr. Fuhrer  enables  me to  give
        some  account  of  his  discoveries  in the  Nepalese
        Terai, north of the district of Gorakhpur, which were
        briefly  noticed in all Indian telegram  of the Times
        of December  28, 1896.  He has sent  me two excellent
        impressions of the new Ashoka edict on the Pillar of
        Paderia, together with  a  memorandum  regarding  his
        tour   and  the  situation   of  the  ruins   in  its
        neighbourhood.

            The edict leaves no doubt that  Dr. Fuhrer  has
        accomplished all the telegram claimed for him. He has
        found the Lumbini garden, the spot where the founder
        of Buddhism was born, according  to the tradition  of
        the canonical  works  of the South  and of the North.
        The decisive  passages  of the Paderia  Edict  are as
        follows:-- "King Piyadasi [or Ashoka], beloved of the
        gods, having been anointed twenty years, himself came
        and worshipped, saying, `Here Buddha  Shakyamini  was
        born'.... and he caused a stone pillar to be erected,
        which declares, 'Here the worshipful  one was born.'"
        Immediately afterwards the edict mentions the village
        of Lummini  (Lumminigama), and adds, according  to my
        interrpretation  of the rather  difficult  new words,
        that Ashoka appointed there two new officials.

            However   that  may  be,  Lummini   is  certainly
        equivalent  to Lumbini, and the pillar marks the site
        which was pointed  out to Ashoka  as the royal garden
        to which Mayadevi

                                p. 430

        retired  immediately  before  her  confinement.   The
        evidence  of the edict could only be set aside if it
        were shown that the pillar has been carried from some
        other  place  to  its  present  site.  But  there  is
        collateral  evidence  to  prove  that  it is  in  its
        original position.  The Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsiang,
        who visited the sacred places of the Buddhists  all
        over India and reached  the Lumbini  garden ill A.D.
        636, mentions  the pillar erected by Ashoka.  He says
        that it stood  close  to four Stupas, and Dr.  Fuhrer
        says that the;r ruins are still extant.  Hiuen Tsiang
        further alleges  that the pillar had been broken into
        two  pieces  through  the  contrivance  of  a  wicked
        dragon, and Dr.  Fuhrer remarks  that it has lost its
        top part, which  appears  to have been  shattered  by
        lightning.  The Buddhists consider destructive storms
        to be due to the anger of the snake-deities or Nagas,
        whom the Chinese  call dragons.  If Hiuen Tsiang does
        not mention  the inscription, the reason  is no doubt
        that it was not visible in his time. When Dr.  Fuhrer
        first  saw the pillar  on December  1, only  a piece,
        nine  feet  high, was above  the  ground, and  it was
        covered  with pilgrims'  records, one of which  beers
        the date A.D.  800.  This piece must, therefore, have
        been accessible, and the surface  of the ground  must
        have  been  at the present  level  for  nearly  1,100
        years.   When  the  excavation   of  the  pillar  was
        afterwards  undertaken, the  Ashoka  inscription  was
        found 10 feet below the surface  and 6 feet above the
        base.  It seems impossible to believe that 10 feet of
        debris  could  have  accumulated  in the  sixty-four
        years between  the date of Hiuen  Tsiang's  visit and
        the incision  of the oldest  pilgrim's  record at the
        top.  Finally, it may be mentioned  that the site  is
        still  called  Rumindei, and the first  part  of this
        name evidently represents Ashoka's Lummini and the

            The identification  of the Lumbini  garden  fixed
        also  the  site  of Kapilavastu, the  capital  of the
        Shakyas,  and  that  of  Napeikia   or  Nabhika,  the
        supposed  birthplace   of  Shakyamuni's   mythical
        predecessor  Krakuchanda.  According  to the  Chinese
        Buddhist Fahien, Hiuen Tsiang's predecessor,

                                p. 431

        Kapilavastu  lay 50 ii (about  8 miles)  west  of the
        garden.   Following   this  indication,  Dr.   Fuhrer
        discovered  extensive  ruins  8 miles  north-west  of
        Paderia, stretehing  in the middle of the forest from
        the villages  of Amauli  and Bikuli  (north-west)  to
        Ramghat  on the Banganga  (south-east), over nearly 7
        miles.  Again, Fahien gives the distance  of Napeikia
        from Kapilavastu as one yojana. Dr.  Fuhrer found its
        ruins with the Stupa, which  is still 80 feet high, 7
        miles south-west. As the Stupa of Konagamana, another
        mythical  Buddha,  had  already  been  found  by  Dr.
        Fuhrer, together  with its Ashoka  edict, in l895, at
        Nigliva, 13 miles from Paderia, all the sacred  sites
        in the western  part of the Nepalese  Terai mentioned
        by the  Chinese  pilgrims  have  been  satisfactorily
        idevtified.  Some others, particularly  Ramagrama and
        Kusinara, the place where Buddha  died, will probably
        be found  in the  eastern  portion  of  the  Nepalese
        lowlands.  For, if the  direction  of the route  from
        Kapila-  vastu  to these  places  has been  correctly
        given by the Chinese, Kusinara  cannot  be identical
        with Kasia in the Gorakhpur  district, where  Sir A.
        Cunningham and Mr.  Carlleyle believed they had found
        it.

            Dr.  Fuhrer's discoveries  are the most important
        which  have been  made for many years.  They  will be
        hailed  with enthusiasm  by the Buddhists  of India,
        Ceylon, and the liar East.  For the student of Indian
        history they yield already some valuable results, and
        they are rich in promise.

            It  is now  evident  that  the  kingdom  of  the
        Shakyas  lay, as their legend  asserts, on the slopes
        of the  Himalaya, and  that  they  were, as they  too
        admit, jungle and hill Rajputs  exiled  from the more
        civilized  districts.   Their  settlement   ill  the
        hill-forest  must have separated them for a prolonged
        period  from their brethren  further  south and west.
        Their isolation  no doubt forced them to develop  the
        entirely  un-Aryan and un-Indian  custom of endogamy,
        as well as other bahits not in accordance  with those
        of   their   kindred.    This   also   explains   why
        intermarriages  between  them  and  the  other  noble
        families of Northern India did not take

                                p. 432

        place.  It was  not, as their  tradition  says, their
        pride  of blood which  prevented  such alliances, but
        the stigma attaching to exiles wile had departed from
        the customs  of their race, and were perhaps not even
        free from a strong admixture of un-Aryan blood.

            For the history  of Ahoka, the Paderia  Edict and
        the  Nigliva.  inscription, the  mutilated  lines  of
        which  may now be restored  with  perfect  certainty,
        teach  us that  the king visited  in his twenty-first
        year the sacred  places of the Buddhists  in Northern
        India.  His journey  extended  probably  also in the
        east  to  Kusinara, and  further  west  to Shravasti,
        where Hiuen Tsiang saw his inscribed  pillars And his
        route  from  his capital  at Patna  to the  Terai  is
        probably  marked  by the  row of columns  found  from
        Bakhra, near Vaishali  or Besarh, as far as Rampurva,
        in the Champaran  district.  The journey may indicate
        that  Ashoka  was at the time  already  a convert  to
        Buddhism, or  it  may  have  been, as  I  think  more
        probable,  one  of  the  "religious   tours"   which,
        according  to  the  eighth  Rock  Edict, he regularly
        undertook  from his eleventh year "in order to obtain
        enlightenment.'

            The fact that he planted  a number of pillars all
        over  the Terai  indicates  that also  this  district
        belonged then to his extensive empire. If I am rightt
        in my interpretation  of the concluding  sentence  of
        the  Paderia   Edict,  according   to  which  Ashoka,
        appointed there two afficials, this inference becomes
        indisputable.

            The promise which Dr.  Fuhrer's discoveries  hold
        out is that excavations of the newly-found ruins will
        make us acquainted  with monuments  and documents not
        only  of'  the third  century  B.C., but  of a.  much
        earlier  period, extending  to the  fifth  and  sixth
        centuries, which latter will be partly Buddhistic and
        partly pre-Buddhistic, like the ancient  Shiva temple
        seen by Hiuen Tsiang ("Siyuki," vol. ii, p. 23, Beal)
        outside  the eastern  gate of Kapilavastu, where  the
        Shakyas  used to present their children.  Kapilavastu
        and its neighbourhood are particularly favourable for
        the discovery.  of really ancient  monuments;  for in
        Fahien's time, about

                                p. 433

        A.D.  400, the country was already a wilderness, with
        very few inhabitants, and full of ancient  mounds and
        ruins. Hiuen Tsiang's description is very similar. It
        is therefore  to be expected  that  the old buildings
        have not been dis- figured by late restorations. I am
        glad to learn from Dr.  Fuhrer's memorandum  that the
        Nepalese  Governor  of the  district, General  Khadga
        Shamsher  Jang  Rana  Bahadur, who had the pillar  of
        Paderia  excavated,  but  did  not  think  any  other
        operations  feasible  on account of the severe famine
        has generously promised to lend nest year a number of
        his sappers for more extensive  excavations.  I trust
        that  the  Indian  Government  will  now  consent  to
        prolong   the   existence   of   the   Archacological
        Department, which, if the rumours  in the papers are
        true, was recently  threatened.  The services  of the
        few officers  still employed  are sorely  needed  for
        conducting the researches in a really systematic  and
        scientific manner.