The Geographical Dictionary of Ancient and Mediaeval India c5.s9.51

c5.s9.51

quarters of the provincial government of the Tarai, and three and half miles to the south-west of Nigliva The town of Kapilavastu comprised the present villages of Chutra dei Ramghat, Sandwa and Tilaura, of which the last mentioned place contained the fort and the palace within it It is situated on the east bank of the Banganga, which has been identified with the Bhagirathi, on the bank of which, according to some authorities, Kapilavastu was situated He has identified Lumbini vana with Rummin dei which is a corruption of Lummini devi, ten miles to the east of Kapilavastu and two miles north of Bhagabanpur, and about a mile to the north of Paderia The inscription found there on the pillar of Asoka leaves no doubt as to the accuracy of the identification It distinctly mentions the name as " Lummini gama " and contains a temple of Maya Devi He has identified also Sarakupa (Arrow well) with Piprava, which also contains the stupa in which the Sakyas of Kapilavastu enshrined the one-eighth share of Buddha's relics obtained by them after his death He identifies Kanaka muni or Kanagamana Buddha's birth place Sobhavatinagara with Araura, a yojana to the east of Tilaura, and Kraku chandra's birth place Khemavatinagara with Gutiva, four miles to the south of Tilaura He has identified the Nyagrodha monastery with the largest mound to the south of Lon-Kudan, which is one mile to the east of Gutiva and one and a half miles west of Tauliva, and has also identified the place of massacre of the Sakyas by Virudhaka with Sagarwa, two miles to the north of Tilaura kot (Mukherji's Antiquities in the Terai, ch 6) Buddha, when he revisited Kapilavastu at the request of his father Suddhodana who had sent Udayi (called also Kaluda) to invite him, dwelt in the Nyagrodha garden, where he converted his son Rahula and his step brother Nanda It was also in this Nyagrodharama Vihara that he refused to ordain his step mother Prajapati and other Sakya princesses, though at the request of Ananda, he ordained them afterwards in Vaisali The names of the twenty four Buddhas who preceded Gautama Buddha are to be found in the Introduction to the Mahavamsa by Turnour The Sakyas, including the Koliyans, had republican form of government like the Vajjians and Lichchhavis of Vaisali and the Mallas of Kusinara and Pava They elected a chief who was called Raja and who presided over the State They carried on their business, in a public hall called the Mote Hall (Santhagara) Suddhodana, Buddha's father was an elected president (Dr Rhys Davids' Buddhist India p 19) The contemporaries of Buddha outside India were the prophet Ezekiel and king Josiah in Jerusalem, Croesus in Lydia, Cyrus in Persia, Anacreon, Sappho, Simonides, Epimenides, Draco, Solon, Esop Pythagoras, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Pisistratus in Greece, Psammeticus in Egypt and Servius Tullius in Rome Ahasuerus reigned thirty years after Buddha's death (Spence Hardy's Legends and Theories of the Buddhists, Introduction, p xxx)