Tribes in Ancient India c53.33

c53.33

The Chinese pilgrim, Fā-Hien, who visited India early in the fifth century A.D., says that the neighbourhood of Kapilavastu was infested by white elephants and lions, against which the people had to be on their guard.⁹ The country was thinly populated. He noticed towers at Kapilavastu, set up at various places, viz. where prince Siddhārtha left the city by the eastern gate, where his chariot was made to turn back to the palace, where his horoscope was cast by the sage Asita, where the elephant was struck by Nanda and others, where the arrow going thirty li in a south-eastern direction penetrated into the earth and produced a fountain of water which quenched the thirst of travellers in later generations, where Śuddhodana was met by his son when the latter had acquired supreme wisdom, where five hundred Śākya converts honoured Upāli, and where the children of the Śākyas were massacred by King Viḍūḍabha.¹