Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/291

 SAH 283 been worsted in argument by the Brahmans under the Brahman Bikramájít. Here as elsewhere royal faiths seem to have been irrefutable. The Ajodhya tradition undoubtedly preserves the correct story of the fall of this dynasty. It relates that after a glorious reign of eighty years Bikramájít was visited by a Jogi Samudra Pal, who, after exhibiting seve- ral remarkable miracles, induced the monarch to allow his spirit to be tem- porarily transferred to a corpse. The royal body was no sooner vacant than Samudra Pál projected his own spirit into it, and refused to evacuate. By this disreputable trick he obtained the throne of Ajodhya and Srávasti, which he and his descendants retained for seventeen generations. The fact contained in this singular legend is that Samudra Gupta, who reigned for the first forty years of the third century A.D., overthrew the local dynasty and himself reigned in their stead. The period of eighty years, as the duration of the rule of Bikramájít and his descendants, is exceedingly probable, and it is singular, though not much weight can be attached to the coincidence, that from Samudra Gupta to Gayaditya, the last of the Aditya Monarchs of Kanauj, ere are exactly seventeen names of the great Vaishya emperors who governed northern India. The Chinese pilgrims did not, of course, omit to visit so sacred a city. Fahian in the commencement of the fifth century found it inhabited by 200 poor families, and the grand building in decay; and 150 years later, when Hwen Thsang arrived, the desolation was complete, and only a few monks haunted the ruins. It was destined, however, to recover for a while before it finally disap- peared from history, and it is here that I must refer to its connection with the origin of a third religion, that of the Jains. The third of their Tirthankáras, Shambhú Náth, was born at Sawatthi, both his immediate predecessors, and both successors were born at the neighbouring city of Ajodhya. There is still a small Jain temple dedicated by the accounts of the neighbouring villagers to Sobhá Náth. I have no doubt that Sobhá Náth and Shambhů Náth, Sawatthi and Srávasti, are the same, and that this was the birth place of the third Tirthankára. The eighth of these super- natural beings was born at Chandripur, and this place is always identified in local tradition with Sahet Mahet, as I shall have occasion to remark when I come to the Mahabharata legend. Since the best authorities differ about 1,500 years as to the probable date of these patriarchs, and their very existence is a fair subject for doubt, I shall not venture to conjecture on their connection with the rise of a strong Jain kingdom in the ninth and tenth centuries. Of this dynasty little more is known than of that of Bikramájít; one great victory throws them into the full light of history, and an interesting legend accounts for their downfall. Local tradi- tion gives the following list of names :- Mayura dhwaja, Hansa dhwaja, Makara dbwaja, Sudbanya dhwaja, Suhiral or Subei Deo or Dal. These are diversely reputed to have been either Thárus, or of some Rajput house. Considering the almost certain origin of the modern Rajputs, the two accounts may both be true ; but, as they were Jains, some confusion