Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/82

 AJO sovereignty was altogether repudiated, and minor local rulers sprang the land, and a period of territorial confusion then the Muhammadan prevailed, which was only finally terminated by copper grant of Jai Chand, the last of the Kanauj conquest. Eathors, dated 1187 A. D., or six years before his death, was found near Fyzabad, when Colonel Caulfield was Resident of Lucknow. (See Asiatic Society's Journal, Volume X, Part I, 1861.)

up throughout

A

Sir H. Elliot mentions that on the occasion of BikramfJj it's visit to Ajodhya, he erected temples at three hundred and sixty places rendered sacred by association with Rama.

Of these shrines but forty-two are known to the present generation, and as there are but few things that are really old to be seen in Ajodhya, most of these must be of comparatively recent restoration. There are also six mandirs of the Jain faith, to which allusion has already been made. It is not easy to over-estimate the historical importance of the place which, at various times and in different ages has been known by the namesofKosala, Ajodhya, and Oudh; because it may be said to have given a religion to a large portion of the human race, being, the cradle alike of

Hindu and the Buddhist

the

faith.

Of Buddhism, Kosala has, without doubt, a strong claim to be considered the mother. Kapila and K^sinagara, both in Gorakhpur and both of that country (Kosala), are the Alpha and Omega of Sakyamuni, the founder of that faith. It was at Kapila that he was bom; it was at Ajodhya that he preached, perhaps, composed those doctrines which have conferred upon him a world wide fame and it was at Kasinagara that he finally reached that much desiderated stage of annihilation by sanctification, '



which

is

known

to his followers as

'

Nirvana,' B. C. 550.

in Ajodhya that we still see pointed out the birth-place as well as of four others of the chief hierarchs of the Jain faith. Here it was that Rikhabdeo of Ikshwaku's royal race matured the schism, somewhat of a compromise between Brahmanism and Buddhism, with which his name wiU ever be associated.

Again,

it

is

of the founder,

may

be observed that the Chinese traveller, Hwen Thsang, found than twenty Buddhist monasteries, with three thousand monks at Ajodhya, in the seventh century, and also a large Brahmanical population with about twenty of their temples so that, after the revival of Brahmanism, the idea of monasteries was probably borrowed from the Buddhists or, may it not have been that whole monasteries went from the one faith to the other, as they stood ? If a Gaur Brahman in these days can legitimately supervise a Jain temple, it seems just possible that the sectarian feelings of the Brahmanists, and Buddhists, and Jains of former times, were less bitter than we are liable to suppose. It

no

less





—

The monastic orders. There are seven akhdras, or cloisters, of the monastic orders, or Bairdgis disciples of Vishnu, in Ajodhya each of which is presided over by a mahant or abbot these are

1.

Nirbdni

or Silent sect,

who have

their dwelling in

Hanoman

Garhi.