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AJO

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Maharaja further stated that the inscription was taken to Lucknow in Nasir-ud-din Haidar's time, and that there was a copy of it at Shahganj, but all my attempts to trace either the original or copy have failed* It is, however, noteworthy that the Maharaja's information, whether reliable or not, IS confirmatory of the inference which General Cunningham had drawn from independent data.

Sugriva and Kahir parta^.— General Cunningham thinks he identified two other mounds, on the Sugrivaparbat, which he describes as a mound ten feet high, and which he imagines is the great monastery of Hwen Thsang (500 X 300), which is south-east of and within five hundred feet of the Maniparbat; and five hundred feet due south, he identified another mound, which is twenty-eight feet high, and which he thinks is the Kabirparbat, or the Stupa described by Hwen Thsang as containing the hair and nails of Buddha.

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On this point I have the following remark to make General Cunningham admits a connexion between the Maniparbat and the Ramkot. Now,

two of the largest bastions or mounds of Ramkot are called to this day Sugriva, and Kabir tila or parbat ; so that it would seem that their connection with Ramkot is more direct, and they appear to be entitled to dispute identity with the spots indicated by the General, to which no traditions locally attach.

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The Tombs of the Patriarchs. Adjoining the Maniparbat are two tombs, which General Cunningham writes that " they are attributed to Sis paighambar and Ay6b paighambar, or the Prophets Seth and Job. The first is seventeen feet long and the other twelve feet. These tombs are mentioned by Abul Fazl, who says Near this are two sepulchral monuments, one seven and the other six cubits in length. The vulgar of



Prinsep mentions this ruler as Nandivardhana,

'

(a

Takshae, according to Tod, ) of the

Sunaka dynasty, kings of Bharathkhanda, part of the Magadha Empire. We may have here some clue as to who the Bhars were people begotten by the conquering soldiers of Bardhanfrom Gya, who were probably of the aboriginal type of that country,

as well as those people of this province who accepted the conqueror's yoke, without taking themselves off to other countries, as many no doubt did ; and in the Rajputs of Eastern Oudh in these days, we may thus have the offspring of a mixed people, the blood of which may have been improved by subsequent intermarriage with those, who, for the sake of their faith, went elsewhere, and whose descendants in rare instances, so far as the Fyzabad district is concerned, returned and settled in Oudh, after the Muhammadan conquest. This may help to account for the strange fact, that none of the Chhattri clans with which I am familiar, can carry their pedigrees back beyond the Muhammadan period. Of most of these clans it can with perfect truth be said that they are indigenous and local, some of them going so far even as to admit a Bhar origin. In all our researches there is nothing more marked than the numerous traditions that connect Oudh with the east on fhe one hand, and with the south and south-west on the other. The explanation of it may perhaps be, that it was from Ajodhya that Rama conveyed the doctrines of the Vedas to Ceylon and the south it was from G-ya that the wave of the opposing Buddhists superiority came, with Nanda Bardhan ; and it was from Ujjain in the south-west that Bikramajit came to restore the Brahman glories of Ajodhya. The Oudh traditions of the one period take the founders of the Buddhist and Jain faiths from Kosala, towards Gya and ParasnAth ; while to those of the other period, half the clans and tribes of the province still trace their origin to such places as Ujjain, Mangipatan, and

Chittorgarh ^ « This information has since been corroborated by the learned pandit l/madatt of Ajodhya, between inscription thirty the and forty years of who informs me that he made a translation ago. He, too, has lost his copy and cannot now describe the contents,