Page:Report of a Tour Through the Bengal Provinces of Patna, Gaya, Mongir and Bhagalpur; The Santal Parganas, Manbhum, Singhbhum and Birbhum; Bankura, Raniganj, Bardwan and Hughli in 1872-73.djvu/120

96 above it for a seventh compartment, but the jangal was too dense to allow me to penetrate to it and establish its existence by actual sight. At the time I explored Râjgir I was not aware of the important connection between the name Sattapanni and seven compartments,—in fact, I had not attempted to trace the meaning of the name, but as soon as I mentioned the discovery to a friend of mine, a Sanskrit scholar, and said that I regarded it as the Sattapanni cave, he at once told me that the very fact of the seven compartments gave the cave a right to the name Saptaparnna, which he said was doubtless the original of the Pali Sattapanni. Subsequently, when at the close of the field season I could procure the necessary books bearing on the subject, I found the surmise of my friend verified, as Spence Hardy and the sacred and historical books distinctly give its name as Sapta Parnna.

It is now a matter of regret to me that, although quite satisfied in my own mind of the existence of a seventh compartment, I did not actually wait at Râjgir till men could be sent up first to clear a path for themselves (I ascended alone at the sacrifice of my thick woollen clothes), and then to clear out the cave.

The cave may now be described in detail; the sketch shows its general plan. A series of chambers separated by natural walls of rock running east and west; I counted six chambers, and there was room between the south wall of the last chamber and the steep side of the hill for a seventh. The accompanying is a section through the hill-side just in front of the cave looking east; the various chambers are neither regularly shaped nor equal in size, they are in fact natural fissures in the rock.Some are very narrow; one especially is only 4 feet wide, others are 6, 8, and 10 feet wide; they are not of equal lengths, but they all narrow towards the interior, till at some distance, which ranges from 6 to 12 feet in various chambers, they become mere clefts; the larger chambers are more square or round-shaped at the inner end; the floors of the caves are not also all at the same level, and the smaller ones are very uneven.