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/45

Rh army from the west or north-west could attack Patna. But beyond this obvious inference there is another very important one. The passage describes the Son as a roaring torrent confined by high banks, which it was undermining by the fierce rapidity of its current—a description which is quite at variance with the character of the Son at the present day. Now, the Son in the cold season, the field season in India, is a very peaceful broad stream, as different from the roaring torrent as it is possible to be; and even in the rains, except in rare floods and at particular parts, it is a mighty stream, but not a roaring and boiling torrent. The description of the Son refers to the month of October or November; for Málayá Ketu, the young Mountain King, is represented as giving vent to his hopes and joyful feelings at the apparent quarrel between Chandragupta, the King of Patna, and Chanakya, his minister. This quarrel took place on the day of full moon of autumn, on which for some festival the city had to be decorated. (Vide Wilson’s Hindu Theatre, II, 191.)

And again—

The only great festival hold on a full moon in autumn is in the I full moon of Kârtik, which falls in October or November, and at this time neither the Son nor other Indian rivers are in high flood.

The description, therefore, implies that at that time the Son was not flowing tranquil in a wide sandy bed, but in a narrow channel with high banks—circumstances which, taken in connection with the fact of the Son having bad a different course before, clearly indicate the channel spoken of having only recently become the bed off the Son. It might be argued that as the Mudra Râkshasa describes events happening in the reign of Chandragupta, the change in the course of the Son must have taken place shortly before, and consequently that Hwen Thsang must have found the Son running in its present channel. To this the answer is very simple. The leading incidents on which the play has been based were handed down by tradition, or,