Page:Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India Vol 12.pdf/9



N the present volume Mr. Carlleyle has described the resuits of two years’ tours in the central portion of the Gangetic Doab, and in the Gorakhpur district, in both of which he made some important and very interesting discoveries. In the Doab he examined the great mound of Indor Khera, 8 miles to the south-south-west of Anupshahr on the Ganges, where he found a copper-plate inscription of the great King Skanda Gupta, dated in the year 146 of the Gupta era. He was fortunate also in discovering the curious old fort of Sankara on the Budh Ganga, and other places in the same neigh­bourhood, which seem to be well worth excavation.

But Mr. Carlleyle’s most valuable work was the discovery of the site of the famous town of Kapilavastu, the birth-place of Sakya Buddha, which was for many centuries the most venerated of all the holy places of Buddhism. At the present day it is only an insignificant village, but its lake is still there, as well as the little river Rowai or Rohini, and numerous old sites, some of whose names still remain unchanged, to attest the correctness of the identification of the old city. Of these the most prominent arc the Sardinia, or “Arrow well," and the Hathi-gadhe or “Elephant Pit.” The former is the Sarakupa of Sanskrit, or the “ Arrow spring,” which marks the spot where Prince SiddhArtha's arrows fell, when he was con­ tending in archery with his kinsmen and the neighbouring Princes. The latter is the Hasti-gartta of Sanskrit, or the "Elephant Hole,” where the elephant, which was killed by