Tribes in Ancient India c61.s2.19

c61.s2.19

From all these mythical stories, it is apparent that the name of the city had something to do with the word viśāla or ‘extensive’, and from what we read of the description of the ruins that Hsüan Tsang saw in the seventh century A.D., there can be no doubt of its wide extent. The Chinese traveller relates, ‘The foundations of the old city Vaiśālī were sixty or seventy li in circuit, and the “palace city” (i.e. the walled part of the city) was four and five li in circuit.’³ This would mean an area of about twenty miles in circumference for the outer town; and the ‘palace city’ perhaps represents the earliest of the three cities which, according to Buddhaghosa, were built to accommodate the Licchavis as they rapidly increased in numbers; but its area would not in that case agree with the statement that each of the three walls was at a distance of a gāvuta (gavyuti) or a quarter yojana, that is roughly a league from the other.