The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c10.15

c10.15

² It is difficult to resist the new evidence in favour of the identification of Śrāvastī with the ruins at Sahēṭh-mahēṭh in Northern Oudh, on the boundary of the Goṇḍa and Bahraich Districts, which is summarized in *J. R. A. S.*, 1909, pp. 1066-8; but the fact remains that the site does not agree with the itineraries of Fa-hien and Hiuen Tsang, who indicate a site higher up the course of the Rāptī in Nepāl, as formerly advocated by me in *J. R. A. S.*, 1898, pp. 502-31, with map, and ibid., 1900, pp. 1-24. I cannot bring myself to accept the supposed error in *both* pilgrims' accounts without some explanation. The statement that four villages known to have been near Śrāvastī can be identified with four villages in the immediate neighbourhood of Sahēṭh-Mahēṭh needs to be supported in detail.