The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c10.50

c10.50

¹ The names Kusumapura and Pushpapura are synonymous, both meaning 'Flower-town'; *pāṭali* means 'trumpet-flower', *Bignonia suaveolens*. The story of the fortress is told in the Buddhist 'Book of the Great Decease' (*Mahāparinibbāna Sutta*), of which the Tibetan version is summarized by Rockhill, op. cit., p. 127. The building of the city by Udaya is attested by the Vāyu Purāṇa. Asoka made Pāṭaliputra the permanent capital (Hiuen Tsang, in Beal, *Records*, ii. 85), but it was already the royal residence in the time of his grandfather, Chandragupta, when Megasthenes visited it. The sites of the capitals occupied by different kings probably were not quite identical.