Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/86

84 that more is known about the internal polity of India as it was in the Maurya age than can be affirmed on the subject concerning any period intervening between that age and the reign of Akbar eighteen centuries later.

Pâtaliputra, the capital of the kingdom of Magadha and the head quarters of the imperial government, stood on the northern bank of the Sôn, a few miles above the conﬂuence of that river with the Ganges. The Sôn changed its course long ago and now unites with the larger stncam near the cantonment of Dinapore (Dhânapur) above Bankipore, but the old bed of the river can be readily traced and vestiges of the ghâts or steps which lined its bank can still be discerned. The capital, thus protected by two great rivers against hostile approach, occupied a strong, defensible position such as was much favoured by the founders of ‘Indian towns. The site is now covered by the large native city of Patna, the English civil station of Bankipore, the East Indian Railway, and sundry adjacent Villages. The belief at one time current that a large part of the ancient city has been cut away by the rivers is erroneous. Diluvial action seems to have been slight, and the remains of the early buildings still exist, but lie buried for the most part under a deep layer of silt.

The ancient city, like its modern successor, was a long, narrow parallelogram, about nine miles in length and a mile and a half in breadth. When Megasthenes lived there in the days of Chandragupta, it