Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/81

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s-weet-smelling Keora, a plant which to this day flourishes with luxuriance in the neighbourhood.

Then came the Buddhist a Brahmanical revival then Bikramdjit is traditionally again began to give place to

supremacy under Asoka and

unusual

his successors



supervened. With this period the name of and intimately associated, when Buddhism

Brahmanism.

_To Bikramajit the restoration of the neglected and forest-concealed is universally attributed. His main clue in tracing the ancient city was, of course, the holy river Sarju, and his next was the shrine, still known as Nageshwar-nath, which is dedicated to Mahadeo, and which presumably escaped the devastations of the Buddhist and Atheist periods. With these clues and aided by descriptions which he found recorded in ancient manuscripts, the different spots rendered sacred by association with the worldly acts of the deified Rama were identified, and Bikramajit is said to have indicated the different shrines to which pilgrims from afar

Ajodhya

still

,

in thousands half-yearly flock.

—

Rdmlcot. The most remarkable of those was, of course, Ramkot, the stronghold of Ram Chandar. This fort covered a large extent of ground, and, according to ancient manuscripts, it, was surrounded by twenty bastions, each of which was commanded by one of Ram's famous generals after whom they took the names by which they are still known. Within the fort were eight royal mansions, where dwelt the Patriarch Dasrath, his wives,

and Ram, his

deified son.

—

SamuTidra Pal Dynasty. According to tradition. Raja Bikramajit ruled over Ajodhya for eighty years, and at the end of that time he was outwitted by the Jogi Samundra Pal who, having by magic made away with the spirit of the raja himself, entered into the abandoned body and he and his dynasty succeeding to the kingdom, they ruled over it for seventeen generations, or six hundred and forty-three years, Which gives an unusual number of years for each reign.



— —

The Sribdstam Dynasty. This dynasty is supposed to have been succeeded by the trans-Gogra Sribastam family, of which Tilok Chand was a prominent member a family which was of the Buddhist or Jain persuasion, and to which are attributed certain old deoharas, or places of Jain worship, which are still to be found in Ajodhya, but which are of modern restoration. It was probably against the Sribastam dynasty that Sayyad Salar made his ill-starred advance into Oudh, when, in the earliest Muhammadan invasion, he and his army (See Chronicles of left their bones to bleach in the wilds of Bahraich. Unao, pages 83 to 85.) But the hold of the trans-Gogra rulers of Ajodhya was soon after this lost, and the place passed under the sway Their power, however, according to hazy of the rajas of Kanauj. for a time to have been successfully disputed by the seems tradition, Magadha dynasty, whose temporary rule is still acknowledged.

—

Subsequently to this,, the Muhammadans partial advance into Hindustan, in alliance with Kanauj, njade another whose raja it again restored to sovereignty; but in these parts this.

The Kanauj Dynasty.

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