The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c6.s3.t21.8

c6.s3.t21.8

The position of the Rohini river is more precisely indicated by the Chinese pilgrims and Ceylonese chronicles. According to Fa-Hian* the royal garden, named Lun-ming, or Lumbini, in which Buddha was born, was situated at 50 *li*, or 8 1/3 miles, to the east of Kapila. Hwen Thsang† calls the garden *La-fa-ni*, and places it on the bank of a small stream flowing to the south-east which the people called the "River of Oil." According to the Ceylonese Chronicles,‡ the Rohini flowed between the cities of Kapila and Koli, the latter being the birth-place of Mâyâ Devi, the mother of Buddha. It was also called *Vyághra-pura*, or "Tiger-town."§ When Mâyâ was near her confinement she went to pay a visit to her parents at Koli. "Between the two cities there was a garden of *Sál* trees called Lumbini, to which the inhabitants of both cities were accustomed to resort for recreation." There she rested and gave birth to the infant Buddha. In another place it is said that during a season of drought the inhabitants of Kapila and Koli quarrelled about the distribution of the waters of the Rohini for the irrigation of their rice-fields.|| From all these details I infer that the Rohini was most probably the Kohána river of the present day, which flows in a south-easterly course about 6 miles to the eastward of Nagar. It is the *Kooana* and *Quana* of the maps, and the *Koyane* of Buchanan,* who describes it as “a fine little river, which, with its numerous branches, fertilizes all the south-eastern parts of the district.” It therefore corresponds in all essential particulars with the Rohini of the Buddhist chronicles.