Tribes in Ancient India c50.343

c50.343

This tradition somehow became twisted and led the Chinese pilgrims Fā-Hien and Hsüan Tsang to speak of the ‘old city’ and the ‘new city’ of Rājagṛha, both with reference to Girivraja, crediting Ajātaśatru with the building of the ‘new city’. Fā-Hien says that a yojana to the west from Nāla, the place of birth and death of Sāriputra, brought him to ‘New Rājagṛha, the new city which was built by King Ajātaśatru’. There were then (fifth century A.D.) two monasteries in it. It was enclosed by a wall with four gates. Three hundred paces outside the west gate was the stūpa erected by Ajātaśatru over a portion of the relics of Buddha. Some four li (less than a mile) south from the south gate was the old city of King Bimbisāra, ‘a circular space formed by five hills’. ⁴