ලුම්බිණිය යනු 1896 දී ආරම්භකල විශ්මයජනක මහා ප්රෝඩාවකි
Lumbini On Trial: The Untold Story
Lumbini On Trial: The Untold Story
There are compelling reasons for believing that the site of
Lumbini is an extraordinary hoax. The details of its
discovery in 1896 reveal a tale of deception and intrigue, which is now told
for the first time.
At present, controversy continues to surround the location
of Kapilavastu, the Buddha’s native town, with both India and Nepal promoting
bids for this historically significant site. The Indian claim is based on the
finds made at Piprahwa, in Basti District, Uttar Pradesh; the Nepalese, by that of
Tilaurakot and its surrounding sites, in the Western Tarai of Nepal. It is my
intention in this paper, however, to demonstrate that neither of these claims
can be considered as acceptable, and to show that equal doubt attaches to the
present site of Lumbini also. I further propose to nominate what I
consider to be the correct locations for these and other major Buddhist sites,
and to give detailed evidence in support of these proposals.
An old French saying declares that to know a river you
should know its source, and any attempt to assess the reliability of the
present identifications should begin by taking a close look at the
circumstances surrounding their discovery. Chief among the participants in
those events - and in my view central to them all - was the notorious figure of
Dr Alois Anton Fuhrer, a German archaeologist employed by the (British)
Government of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh between 1885-98, and
co-discoverer of the present Lumbini site.
Modern Indologists, while aware of Fuhrer’s unsavoury
reputation, have neglected to conduct any really close scrutiny of his
activities, fondly believing that these have long since been satisfactorily
catalogued and assessed, and that Fuhrer may be safely consigned to oblivion in
consequence. Unfortunately, this is far from being the case. Fuhrer, in fact,
drove a coach and horses through critical areas of Indological research, and
his deceptions continue to have far-reaching consequences for world history to
this day. He was a prolific plagiarist and forger (who worked, alarmingly, on
the first two volumes of the Epigraphia Indica) and I have good reason to
believe that his deceptions were sometimes condoned, even exploited, by the
Government of the day, for imperial reasons of their own. Following Fuhrer’s
resignation in 1898, the Secretary to the Lieutenant-Governor of the
North-Western Provinces remarked, in a letter to central Government, that ‘His
Honor fears it must be admitted that no statement made by Dr Fuhrer on
archaeological subjects, at all events, can be accepted until independently
verified’. Unfortunately this verification was by no means as rigorous as one
might perhaps have wished, as we shall shortly see.
Fuhrer was appointed to the position of Curator at the
Lucknow Provincial Museum in 1885, and became Archaeological Surveyor to the
Government of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh shortly thereafter. In 1889,
he challenged the accepted identification for the site of Kapilavastu (then
thought to be Bhuila Dih in Basti District) an event which should be borne in
mind whilst reviewing later developments in his career.
Fuhrer’s first venture into fraudulent activity appears to
have occurred in 1892, when he copied inscriptions from Buhler’s articles on
Sanchi and Mathura, reworked them, and wrote the results into the report of his
own excavations at the site of Ramnagar. This wholesale deception appears to
have passed completely unnoticed during this period, including, apparently, by
Buhler himself, with whom Fuhrer was then in correspondence. He also incised
Brahmi inscriptions on to stone exhibits in the Lucknow Museum at this time,
forgeries which should also be noted in the light of subsequent events.
In 1893, Fuhrer reported that Jaskaran Singh, a wealthy
landowner from Balrampur, had found an inscribed Asokan pillar at Bairat, a
deserted spot near the Indo-Nepalese border. Two years later, Fuhrer ‘left for
Balrampur...to look up the Asoka pillar’ which Singh had reported, but ‘it
turned out that the information furnished by Major Jaskaran Singh was
unfortunately misleading as to the exact position of this pillar’, and ‘after
experiencing many difficulties’, Fuhrer found a pillar near the Nepalese
village of Nigliva (see map).
An Asokan inscription was reportedly discovered by Fuhrer on a broken piece of
this pillar, the main shaft of which lay close by. Though the local villagers
supposedly told him that ‘other inscriptions were hidden beneath the soil’ in
which this stump was partly buried, Fuhrer was refused permission to excavate,
and he was thus ‘compelled to content myself with taking impressions and paper
moulds of the lines visible above ground’. Permission to excavate was granted
two months later, but as this was ‘without any results whatsoever’, it is
evident that the inscription was that of ‘the lines visible above ground’ on
Fuhrer's arrival. This is most important, as we shall shortly see.
The inscription referred to Asoka’s enlargement of the stupa
of the ‘previous Buddha’, Konagamana, which according to Fuhrer was situated
close by, ‘amidst vast brick ruins stretching far away in the direction of the
southern gate of Kapilavastu’. Fuhrer gave extensive details of this ancient
and impressive structure, declaring that it was ‘undoubtedly one of the oldest
Buddhist monuments in India’, and stating that ‘on all sides of this interesting
monument are ruined monasteries, fallen columns, and broken sculptures’.
All this was pure moonshine however, as later surveys soon
revealed. The stupa didn’t exist, and it was found that Fuhrer had copied its
elaborate details (including those ‘ruined monasteries, fallen columns, and
broken sculptures’) from Alexander Cunningham’s book ‘Bhilsa Topes’. Moreover, Fuhrer’s statement that
this Asokan inscription was ‘visible above ground’ on his arrival raises
further grave doubts. For in a later report by Drs Hoey and Waddell, it emerged
that in 1893 – i. e. two years before Fuhrer’s visit - Hoey had
commissioned the local Governor, Khadga Shamsher, to take rubbings of the
pillar inscriptions in this area, ‘but these were not of Asoka lettering’.
Fuhrer also lied when he claimed that the inscribed portion of this pillar was
‘resting on a masonry foundation’, the precise measurements of which he also
gave ; this didn’t exist either, this broken piece being merely stuck into the
ground at the site. Indeed, Hoey declared that Fuhrer had ‘lied and lied on a
grand scale’ concerning his alleged Nepalese discoveries, adding that ‘one is
appalled at the audacity of invention here displayed’.
Finally, the Divyavadana describes how Asoka was
conducted to Lumbini for the first time by his spiritual preceptor,
Upagupta, who pointed out to the king the spot where the Buddha was born.
Though the Lumbini pillar inscription states that this visit occurred during
the twentieth year of Asoka’s reign, the nearby Nigliva inscription
states that Asoka ‘increased for the second time the stupa of Buddha
Konagamana’ when he had been reigning for only fourteen years. This is absurd. Why
would Asoka decide to enlarge the Konagamana stupa - and for the second time -
six years before he had even set foot in the Lumbini area?
The following year (1896) found Fuhrer back in Nepal once
more, this time ‘to explore the whole neighbourhood of Taulihawa as far as
Bhagvanpur, where there is said to exist another Asoka Edict pillar’. Fuhrer
had referred to this other ‘Asoka Edict pillar’ in his 1895 report, though
there was then no reason for believing that this pillar - the present Lumbini pillar - was Asokan;
V. A. Smith had obtained rubbings from it ‘a dozen years’ earlier, and had
found only ‘mediaeval scribblings’ on its exposed portion at that time.
The site was supposedly called ‘Rummindei’, this being considered to be a later variant of the name
‘Lumbini’.
But as E. J. Thomas observed:
‘According to Fuhrer, “this deserted site is still locally
called Rummindei”
(Monograph, p. 28). This statement was generally accepted before
Fuhrer’s imaginativeness was discovered, and is still incautiously repeated.
Yet he admitted that it was not the name used by the present Nepalese
officials. “It is a curious fact (he says) that the true meaning of this
ancient Buddhistic name has long been forgotten, as the present Nepalese
officials believe the word to signify the sthan of Rupa-devi”. V. A.
Smith said “the name Rummindei, of which a variant form Rupadei (sic) is known to the
hill-men, is that of the shrine near the top of the mound of ruins”. This gives
no further evidence for Fuhrer’s assertion, and it appears that neither the
Nepalese officials nor the hill-men called it Rummindei’.
The Indian Survey map of 1915 lists the spot as
‘Roman-devi’; it should be noted that another ‘Roman-dei’ exists about 30 miles
WSW of the Nepalese site, near the Indian town of Chandapar. Today, the site is situated in the ‘Rupandehi
District’ of Nepal.
Whatever the event, in December 1896 Fuhrer met up at this
Nepalese ‘Rummindei’
with the local Governor, Khadga Shamsher, ‘a man with intrigue in his bones’,
who having assassinated one Prime Minister of Nepal and plotted against two
others, eventually fled to British India and sanctuary. The
subsequent excavations around the pillar reportedly disclosed an Asokan
inscription about a metre below ground, and level with the top of a surrounding
brick enclosure.
The credit for the discovery of this inscription later
prompted an official enquiry, since Fuhrer had supposedly left the site just
before any excavations had begun, leaving the Governor and his ‘sappers’ to do
the digging. In his official letter on the matter, Fuhrer stated that he had
advised the Governor ‘that an inscription would be found if a search was made
below the surface of the mound’ on which the pillar was situated. Since there
was no previous historical reference to such an inscription, one wonders
at Fuhrer’s remarkable prescience on this occasion. However, since this
inscription provides the basis for the identification of this place with
Lumbini,
I propose to deal with it before passing on to other features at this site.
The appearance of this inscription in 1896 marked its first
recorded appearance in history. The noted Chinese pilgrims, Fa-hsien and
Yuan-chuang, make no mention of it in their accounts of the Lumbini site (though
Yuan-chuang does give a detailed description of a pillar) and as Thomas Watters
observed:
‘We have no records of any other pilgrims visiting this
place, or of any great Buddhists residing at it, or of any human life, except
that mentioned by the two pilgrims, between the Buddha’s time and the present.
In Watters’ book ‘On Yuan Chwang’s Travels in India’ (prepared from an unpublished manuscript after his death)
the following statement is found with reference to the Lumbini site:
‘Yuan-chuang, as we have seen, mentions a stone pillar, but
he does not say anything about an inscription on it. The Fang-chih, however,
tells us that the pillar recorded the circumstances of Buddha's birth’.
The Fang-chih – a shortened version of Yuan-chuang’s account
- does nothing of the sort, since though it also refers to a stone pillar at
Lumbini,
no inscription ‘recording the circumstances of Buddha’s birth’ is mentioned in
this text either. Watters, a great Sinologist, was referred to by V. A. Smith
as ‘one of the most brilliant ornaments’ of Chinese Buddhist scholarship, and
it is inconceivable that he would have made this critical mistake. Indeed, when
Smith asserted that the Lumbini pillar inscription ‘set at rest all doubts as
to the exact site of the traditional birthplace of Gautama Buddha’, Watters acidly retorted that ‘it would be more correct to
say that the inscription, if genuine, tells us what was the spot indicated to
Asoka as the birthplace of the Buddha’. Note that ‘if genuine’ : this shows
that Watters not only had his doubts
about this inscription, but that he was also prepared to voice those doubts in
public. Moreover, according to Smith, ‘Mr Watters writes in a very sceptical
spirit, and apparently feels doubts as to the reality of the Sakya principality
in the Tarai’.. From all this, it will clearly be seen that this Fang-chih
‘mistake’ was totally at variance with Watters’ ‘very sceptical spirit’
regarding these supposed Nepalese discoveries (Lumbini included) ; and I shall
therefore charge that it was a posthumous interpolation into Watters’
original text by its editors, Rhys Davids, Bushell, and Smith. If this charge is correct – and I am quite sure that it is -
then the reasons behind this appalling deception can only be guessed at, I need
hardly add.
Fuhrer was later found to have fraudulently laid claim to
the discovery of about twenty relic-caskets at sites close to Lumbini, which allegedly bore Asokan, and even pre-Asokan
inscriptions. One of these items supposedly contained a tooth-relic of the
Buddha, which Fuhrer illicitly exchanged for gifts with a Burmese monk, U Ma
(the correspondence between these two makes for lamentable reading, with Fuhrer
exploiting U Ma’s gullibility quite unmercifully). Following an official
enquiry into the matter, this tooth-relic was found to be ‘apparently that of a
horse’ : Fuhrer had explained its large size to an indignant U Ma by pointing
out that according to ‘your sacred writings’ the Buddha was nearly thirty feet
in height!
According to Fuhrer, this ‘Buddhadanta’ had been found by a
villager inside a ruined brick stupa near Tilaurakot, and was ‘enshrined in a
bronze casket, bearing the following inscription in Maurya characters: “This
sacred tooth-relic of Lord Buddha (is) the gift of Upagupta” (the mentor of
Asoka).. Having obligingly parted with the relic, the villager had refused to
part with the inscribed casket itself ‘which is still in his possession’.
Fuhrer reported finding this bogus Asokan inscription during the selfsame visit
which saw the discovery of the Asokan inscription at Lumbini. Moreover, according to Fuhrer, the Lumbini
inscription included words which were supposedly spoken by Upagupta
whilst showing Asoka the Buddha’s birth-spot : ‘It would almost appear as if
Asoka had engraved on this pillar the identical words which Upagupta uttered at
this place’, he tells us, all wide-eyed. However, what with a bogus Upagupta
quote on the casket, an Upagupta quote on the pillar, and Fuhrer’s keen taste
for forging Brahmi inscriptions, we may here recall that he had fraudulently
incised Brahmi inscriptions on to stone four years earlier (see ‘Fuhrer's Early
Years’). And indeed, this pillar inscription ‘appeared almost as if freshly
cut’ when Rhys Davids examined it in 1900, a
view echoed by Professors N. Dutt and K. D. Bajpai, who noted that ‘it appears
as if the inscription has been very recently incised’ when they examined it
fifty years later. W. C. Peppe observed that ‘the rain falling on this pillar
must have trickled over these letters and it is marvellous how well they are
preserved; they stand out boldly as if they had been cut today and show no
signs of the effects of climate; not a portion of the inscription is even
stained’. Inscriptions on other Asokan pillars located at sites associated with
the Buddha’s life and ministry - Sarnath and Kosambi, for example - contain no
references to their Buddhist associations, as this pillar so
conspicuously - and twice - does; and no other inscription makes reference to
any erection of a particular pillar by Asoka (as this one does) either. And
with the exceptions of Sarnath and Sanchi, where only broken bases of pillars
have been found, the surfaces of all other inscribed Asokan pillars are almost
covered with inscriptions, whereas this pillar, and the nearby
Nigliva pillar, display only single meagre inscriptions of 4 -5 lines each, and
as J. F. Fleet has pointed out, they are not really edicts at all.
There is an additional mystery here. As noted above, Fuhrer
had supposedly left the site just before the inscription was unearthed. Yet he
had travelled up from Lucknow, crossed the Nepalese Tarai to Nigliva by
elephant – a difficult and laborious undertaking - and then been further
redirected to the ‘Rummindei’ site, where he had been officially appointed to
superintend the excavations. The existing accounts state that having finally
arrived at the site, Fuhrer identified the pillar as Asokan, assured Khadga
Shamsher that an Asokan inscription would be found after further excavation,
and then, astonishingly, left before the inscription was exposed. This is
frankly unbelievable. Are we really to believe that after several days’ arduous
efforts to reach this site, and declaring that this world-shaking discovery was
close at hand – a couple of hours’ excavation away at most – Fuhrer would then simply
walk away, leaving Khadga Shamsher to expose the inscription in his
absence? This is like believing that Howard Carter would choose to walk away from
the opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb ; it was, after all, a defining moment not
just of Indian archaeology, but of world history also. V. A. Smith stated that
a nearby landowner, Duncan Ricketts, ‘had the good fortune to be present while
the inscription was being unearthed. Dr Fuhrer arrived a little later’. But
Smith’s statement ignores Fuhrer’s earlier presence at the site; and
since the accounts which were furnished by Fuhrer and Khadga Shamsher make no
reference to Ricketts anyway, one assumes that Fuhrer had alerted him to these
excavations after this mysterious departure (Ricketts lived just a few miles
away). So what’s to stop Fuhrer from forging the inscription, reinterring the
excavated soil (a common archaeological practice) and then notifying Ricketts
of events at the site, an action which would have served to remove any
subsequent awkward questions on the matter? Only this scenario, it seems to me,
can explain Fuhrer’s sudden absence at this critical moment - by far the most
important in his entire archaeological career - and it is evident that
skulduggery was very much at work here.
Fuhrer also refers to a ‘pilgrim's mark’ on the upper part
of this pillar, and whilst providing no photograph of it, still less any
details of its language, script, or content, he dates it at around 700 AD. He
states that since this item was visible above ground whilst the Asokan
inscription lay hidden beneath the soil, this somehow explains Yuan-chuang’s
failure to notice the latter during his visit to Lumbini around 635 AD.
However, since there is no such ‘pilgrim's mark’ on this pillar anyway - this
was yet another Fuhrer lie – it is evident that this was merely another clumsy
attempt by Fuhrer (as with the phony Nigliva stupa) to add credence to this
Asokan inscription also. Why else would Fuhrer invent it?
There are, moreover, serious
epigraphical problems with the pillar inscription itself. The term ‘silavigadabhi’
which occurs in this inscription appears to have baffled all attempts at
translation thus far. According to Pischel, vigadabhi is ‘literally,
‘not so uncouth as a donkey'’ (a translation which Fuhrer cheerfully endorsed)
though quite how this phrase might relate to the birthplace of the Buddha
remains unclear. More damaging still, however, is the
presence of the term ‘Sakyamuni’ in this inscription. Simply put, it shouldn’t be there.
‘Sakyamuni’ is a later, Sanskritised form of this term, and thus
has no place in an allegedly Asokan Brahmi inscription. Its earliest appearance
occurred when the north-western Prakrit inscriptions began to show Sanskrit
influence – so-called Epigraphical Hybrid Sanskrit, a development which arose
two or three centuries after Asoka - and before this it was
always written as ‘Sakamuni’, in both Brahmi and Kharosthi inscriptions. There would thus appear to be no
epigraphical support for the presence of ‘Sakyamuni’ in this Asokan Brahmi
inscription, and I shall charge that this exposes it as yet another Fuhrer
forgery. Though
it occurs in a few Pali texts, these were also written down much
later, and as J. F. Fleet observed:
‘The inscriptions of India are the only sure
grounds of historical results in every line of research connected with its
ancient past; they regulate everything that we can learn from coins,
architecture, art, literature, tradition, or any other source.
A similar caution has been expressed by Richard Salomon:
‘...there can be no question that in Buddhological studies
as a whole the testimony of the inscriptions has not generally been given the
weight it merits, and that the entire field of the history of Buddhism, which
has traditionally been dominated by a strongly text-oriented approach, must be
re-examined in its light.
The pillar at the present Lumbini site is in the
‘wrong’ place; that is, it is in a very different position, relative to the
so-called ‘Sacred Pool’, from that given by Yuan-chuang (and the pillar rests
upon a support-stone, it should be noted here). According to this pilgrim, a
decayed ‘Asoka-flower’ tree lay twenty-five paces to the north of the pool at
Lumbini, marking the birth-spot of the Buddha. To the east of this lay an
Asokan stupa, marking the spot where ‘two dragons’ bathed the newly-born
prince; to the east of this were two more stupas, close to two springs; to the
south of these was another stupa; close to this were four more stupas; and
close to these was the stone pillar itself, broken in half and lying near to a
little ‘river of oil’. A little elementary geometry will disclose that the
pillar thus lay - apparently at some distance - to either the east or to the
south-east of the pool. At the present site, however, the pillar (on its
support-stone, remember) stands a mere 75 metres or so to the north-north-west
of the pool, a position diametrically opposed to that given by Yuan-chuang in
his carefully-detailed account.
In 1994, I photographed an official notice at the present
Lumbini site (see Fig. 1 ) the text of which ran as follows:
‘The famous Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang says :- “Lumbini is on the bank of the
River Telar where an Asokan pillar (with a split in the centre), the Mayadevi
Temple, the Sacred Tank, and a few stupas are situated”.’
Yuan-chuang, alas, makes no such statement, and like
Fa-Hsien, his account makes no mention whatsoever of any ‘Mayadevi Temple’ at
Lumbini.
He is also, as we have seen, quite specific about the stupas at the site, and
of their significance, and his account mentions only a ‘little river of oil’
and not the River Telar (which runs about a kilometre away from the present
site anyway). As for the ‘Mayadevi Temple’ itself, I can find nothing to
connect this structure with Lumbini, let alone with anything Buddhist. Neither
pilgrim makes any reference to it as I have noted, and the present item is an
entirely modern affair anyway, beneath which lay the remains of an earlier
structure exposed by P.C. Mukherji in 1899. The ornately-carved bricks which
formed part of this earlier edifice were identical to those found in structures
at the nearby Sivaite sites of Sagarwa and Kodan, these being dated by
Debala Mitra at ‘not earlier than the eighth century AD’..
Similarly, the sandstone image in this ‘temple’ (see Fig. 2) supposedly of Mayadevi giving birth to the Buddha, appears
equally dubious on a close examination of its origins. This bas-relief,
in which the figures are so defaced as to be unrecognisable (see Fig. 5) formed part of the remains of
various broken statues which Mukherji found during his visit to the site in
1899. These items consisted of Hindu deities such as Varahi, Durga, Parvati,
Ganesh,
etc - nothing Buddhist - and it is noted that the supposed image of Mayadevi
bears a striking resemblance to figures of yakshis and devatas also (see Figs. 2-4 ). It
is by no means certain that the all-important top piece of this ‘Mayadevi’
figure, with its raised arm holding a tree-branch, was originally associated
with the torso either. This feature was absent when Hoey first saw the image in
1897, being later added by Mukherji from among the broken pieces mentioned
above. During a subsequent visit, Landon noted that among various examples of
Mukherji's careless assembly of these pieces was one showing a head of Ganesh
placed on ‘the headless body of a female deity’ (see
Fig. 6). Whatever the event, all of these items - the so-called
‘Mayadevi’ figure included - were associated with the earlier structure found
by Mukherji, and are therefore of mediaeval Hindu provenance. There is thus
nothing Buddhist about the ‘Mayadevi Temple’ at all, and it is not a temple
either.
In January 1898, W. C. Peppe, manager of the Birdpur Estate
in north-eastern Basti District, U. P., announced the discovery of soapstone
caskets and jewellery inside a stupa near Piprahwa (see map)
a small village on this estate. An inscription on one of these caskets appeared
to indicate that bone relics, supposedly found with these items, were those of
the Buddha. Since this inscription also referred to the Buddha’s Sakyan
kinsmen, these relics were thus generally considered to be those which were
accorded to the Sakyas of Kapilavastu, following the Buddha’s cremation. The
following year, these bone relics were ceremonially presented by the (British)
Government of India to the King of Siam,
who in turn accorded portions to the Sanghas of Burma and Ceylon. Concerning this discovery, however, the
following points should be noted:
·
Peppe had been in contact with
Fuhrer just before announcing the Piprahwa discovery (Fuhrer was then excavating nearby,
at the Nepalese site of Sagarwa : see map).
Immediately following Peppe's announcement, it was discovered that Fuhrer had
been conducting a steady trade in bogus relics of the Buddha with a Burmese
monk, U Ma. Among these items – and a
year before the alleged Piprahwa finds - Fuhrer had sent U Ma a
soapstone relic-casket containing fraudulent Buddha-relics of the Sakyas of
Kapilavastu, together with a bogus Asokan inscription, these deceptions thus
duplicating, at an earlier date, Peppe’s supposedly unique finds.. Fuhrer
was also found to have falsely laid claim to the discovery of seventeen
inscribed, pre-Asokan Sakyan caskets at Sagarwa, his report even listing the
names of seventeen ‘Sakya heroes’ which were allegedly inscribed upon these
caskets. The inscribed Piprahwa casket was also considered to be both Sakyan
and pre-Asokan at this time - though its characters have since been shown to be
typically Asokan - and no other Sakyan caskets have been discovered either
before or since this date.
·
the bone relics themselves,
purportedly 2500 years old, ‘might have been picked up a few days ago’
according to Peppe, whilst a molar tooth
found among these items (and retained by Peppe) has recently been found to be
that of a pig.. The eminent archaeologist, Theodor
Bloch, declared of the Piprahwa stupa that ‘one may be permitted to maintain
some doubts in regard to the theory that the latter monument contained the
relic share of the Buddha received by the Sakyas. The bones found at that
place, which have been presented to the King of Siam, and which I saw in
Calcutta, according to my opinion were not human bones at all’.. Bloch was then
Superintendent both of the ASI Bengal Circle and the Archaeological Section of
the Indian Museum, and would presumably have drawn not only upon his own
expertise in making this assertion, but also that of the zoologists in the
Indian Museum itself. This museum – formerly the Imperial Musem - was then
considered to be the greatest in Asia.
·
the caskets appear to be identical
to caskets found in Cunningham’s book ‘Bhilsa Topes’ (see Figs. 7-12 ) a source also used by Fuhrer for his Nigliva deceptions. A
photograph of the ‘rear’ of the inscribed Piprahwa casket, taken in situ at Piprahwa in
1898 (and never published thereafter) discloses that a large sherd was missing
from the base of the vessel at this time (see Fig. 8 ). Having closely examined this
casket in 1994, I noted that a piece had since been inserted into this broken
base, and that this had been ‘nibbled’ in a clumsy attempt to get this piece to
fit. The photograph also reveals a curious feature on the upper aspect of the
casket; this, I discovered, was a piece of sealing-wax (since transferred to
the inside) which had been applied to prevent a large crack from running
further. From all this, it is evident that this casket had been badly damaged
from the start, a fact not mentioned in any published report. But is it likely,
one is prompted to ask, that this damaged casket, supposedly containing
the Buddha’s relics, would have been deposited inside the stupa anyway? Or is
this the broken casket, ‘similar in shape to those found below’, which was
reportedly found near the summit of the stupa, and which had vanished without
trace thereafter? This casket – also damaged - was the first of the alleged
Piprahwa finds ; so did Peppe take it to Fuhrer, and did Fuhrer then forge the
inscription on it? Is the Piprahwa inscription simply another Fuhrer
forgery? As Assistant Editor on the
Epigraphia Indica, Fuhrer would certainly have had the necessary expertise to
do this, quite apart from his close association with the great epigraphist,
Georg Buhler (who may have unwittingly provided Fuhrer with the necessary
details, according to the existing accounts).
·
on his return to the U. K., Peppe
was contacted by the London Buddhist Society, and agreed to answer readers’
questions on his finds. Shortly afterwards however, the Society was notified
that Peppe had suddenly been taken seriously ill, and was therefore unable to
answer any questions as proposed. The Society declared the matter to be ‘in
abeyance’ in consequence ; but Peppe died six years later, leaving all
such questions still unanswered..
·
the declassified ‘Secret’ political
files of the period reveal the disquiet felt by the Government of India over French and
Russian influence at the Siamese royal court at this time. Hence, no doubt,
this bequest!.
In 1972 an Indian archaeologist, K. M. Srivastava,
made the startling claim to have discovered yet further relics of the Buddha in
a ‘primary mud stupa’ below the Peppe' one. According to him, the
‘indiscriminate destruction’ caused by Peppe meant that the 1898 bone relics
could not be safely determined to be those of the Buddha, and the inscribed
casket somehow ‘pointed’ to those relics allegedly found (by him) lower down,
which were thus the real relics of
the Buddha as mentioned by the casket’s inscription. Since this bizarre
proposal thus rests upon the notion that the 1898 inscription is genuine –
hardly likely, as we have seen – then this claim becomes equally improbable in
consequence. I also note that Srivastava makes no mention, in any of his
publications on his alleged finds, of the earlier bequest of the Peppe relics
to Siam. Naturally, one wonders why.
(For a fuller exploration of this vexed question, see my
website ‘The Piprahwa Deceptions: Setups
and Showdowns’ at http://www.piprahwa.org.uk ).
It is thus with a certain sense of relief that one turns to
the testimonies of the two great Chinese pilgrims, Fa-Hsien and Yuan-Chuang,
since not only did these pilgrims actually visit Lumbini and Kapilavastu, but
their accounts reveal precisely how they got there also. These accounts remain
the definitive guides to the whereabouts of ancient Indian Buddhist sites, and
as Cunningham, Beal, and other authorities have declared:
‘…the voyages of the two Chinese
travellers, undertaken in the fifth and seventh century of our era, have done
more to elucidate the history and geography of Buddhism in India than all that has hitherto been found in the
Sanskrit and Pali books of India and the neighbouring
countries’.
Now not only did the pilgrims agree on the location
of Kapilavastu (and thus serve to confirm each other’s testimony) but since
they both actually went to
Kapilavastu, then this must surely settle any question regarding its
whereabouts. From the city of Sravasti, both pilgrims placed Kapilavastu in
a south-easterly direction, and at a distance of 500 li (Yuan-chuang) or 12
yojanas (Fa-Hsien). This is between 84-90 miles.. Yet neither of the
present identifications for Kapilavastu shows the slightest accordance with the
pilgrims’ bearings. Piprahwa lies only fifty-five miles east of
Sravasti, whilst Tilaurakot lies east-north-east at around the
same distance (see map).
Having acknowledged the impossibility of reconciling these locations with the
pilgrims’ accounts,.
V.
A. Smith then attempted to ‘solve’ the problem by
relocating Sravasti itself into Nepal
(see map).
Later excavations reconfirmed Cunningham’s identification of Sravasti with the
Indian site of Sahet-Mahet however, and this intractable problem has remained
ever since (though discreetly ignored by all later researchers, I note). But we
must search for Kapilavastu where the pilgrims found it – regardless of
any present claims to the contrary - and prior to Fuhrer’s Nepalese
identifications this was thought to be ‘well within the Basti District’, an
area, like the neighbouring Gorakhpur District, rich in ancient Buddhist sites,
still largely unexcavated and unexplored.
‘…our knowledge about the position
of Kapila may be reduced to this: that it lay on the route from the Buddhist
cities of eastern Gorakhpur to the Buddhist Sravasti of Gonda; and that that
route probably passed between the Ghagra and Rapti rivers’.
Before proceeding further, it will be necessary to point out
that most traces of the original Kapilavastu site will have long since disappeared
anyway. As Herbert Härtel has pointed out:
‘The hope to recover the original structures and ruins of a
town or habitation of the time of the Buddha, let us say Kapilavastu, is almost
zero’. .
The problem being that the earliest burnt brick buildings
found in India date to the second
century BC (with the exception of the Harappan sites, which need not concern us
here) and any earlier remains would have long since returned to clay in
consequence. This being so, we are thus compelled to rely upon the pilgrims’
accounts together with whatever local traditions may tell us, and this in an
area where the threads of all such traditions were systematically broken, and
Buddhist sites were either abandoned to the jungle or converted into Hindu
sites instead. Astonishingly, however, one such tradition has survived; and I
now propose to examine this in detail, since it would appear to hold the key to
the Kapilavastu problem at last.
Between the Ghagra and Rapti rivers,
at the correct distance from Sravasti (about 84 miles) and in the right direction
also (south-east) lies the pilgrimage site of Maghar, about sixteen miles west
of Gorakhpur (see map).
At present this site is visited by Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim pilgrims, since it
marks the final resting-place of the great poet/saint Kabir, who died at this
spot in 1518 AD. Kabir’s sayings disclose that he had not only received his
spiritual enlightenment at Maghar, but that he had also elected to die there,
in deliberate defiance of contemporary Brahmin teachings. These declared that
Maghar was ‘accursed’, and held that whilst dying in Varanasi assured rebirth
in heaven, death at ‘barren’ Maghar meant rebirth in hell, or as an ass, etc... Such
dire fulminations from the Varanasi Brahmins against Maghar – a small village,
200 kms. distant - constitute a sure indication that this place was once an
important rival religious site, which they found it necessary to discredit. But
why would anyone have wished to die at Maghar anyway? The answer is not far to
seek. According to Buddhist tradition, ‘the Buddha was, after his parinirvana,
in some sense actually present at the places where he is known to have formerly
been’, and ‘a devout death that occurred within the range of this presence
assured for the individuals involved - and these were both monks and laymen -
rebirth in heaven’.. Since, as we shall now see, there is compelling evidence
to show that Maghar was formerly the site of Kapilavastu itself, then the
reason for people electing to die there then becomes abundantly clear, as
indeed, does Brahmin hostility towards this place.
For A. C. L. Carlleyle, who did archaeological tours of this
area in the 1870s, tells us not only that the Maghar site is ‘very ancient’,
but that it was ‘reputed to have been the seat of Buddhist hierarchs for
some time after Kapilavastu was destroyed’. Kapilavastu was destroyed
during the Buddha’s lifetime, by the king of Sravasti; yet when the Chinese
pilgrims visited the Kapilavastu site a thousand years later, they still found
Buddhist monks in residence (and these would doubtless have included ‘Buddhist
hierarchs’). One also notes ‘the prominent association of this place with
Buddhism’,
together with the curious tradition
that with the arrival of Kabir, a dried-up local stream began to flow once
more. This is more likely to refer to the reawakening at Maghar, of the
anti-Brahmin, anti-caste tradition of Buddhism by the similar teachings of
Kabir, one feels, than to any sudden and supernatural antics of the local River
Ami. And just who was the protective ‘Lord’ of the (Buddhist) Tharus - the earliest recorded inhabitants of
Maghar - whose place of worship (beneath a tree) was called the ‘Thakur-dih’,
or high place of the Lord, but upon whose name ‘tradition is silent’?. On
visiting this site in 2005, I was twice informed by local sources that Chinese
travellers had also visited long ago, and that they had stayed in the area for
a while..
The remains at the deserted ‘Thakur–dih’ site – which include ancient walls and
wells - call for detailed and careful archaeological examination, as do various
mounds in the vicinity.
From all this it can clearly be seen that ‘very ancient’
Maghar was once a major Buddhist site. Just as the Chinese pilgrims found
Buddhist monks living at the Kapilavastu site a thousand years after its
destruction, so we are told that Maghar was also occupied by important Buddhist
monks ‘after Kapilavastu was destroyed’. We have direct historical evidence,
from Kabir, that people deliberately chose to die at this place, and whilst the
Varanasi Brahmins cursed it, and declared that choosing to die there meant
rebirth in hell, Buddhists believed that to die in a place where the Buddha had
once walked meant rebirth in heaven. And since Maghar lies around 84 miles
south-east of Sravasti, and is thus in perfect agreement with the location
which was given by both of the Chinese pilgrims for Kapilavastu, there can
surely remain no doubt that this is indeed the place where Kapilavastu itself
once stood.
From the palace-city of Kapilavastu, Yuan-chuang travelled
to the Arrow Well. He states that this lay 32 li (between 5-6 miles) to the southeast
of the city, a bearing which agrees with that given by Fa-hsien. From here,
Yuan-chuang travelled ‘80 or 90 li north-east’- about 15 miles - to the Lumbini Garden, though he
gives no direct distance between
Kapilavastu and Lumbini. Fa-hsien, however, states that he went directly from
Kapilavastu ‘50 li east’ to Lumbini (about nine miles) but this distance is
impossible to reconcile with Yuan-chuang's triangulation. If Yuan-chuang's
bearings are correct - and they are usually more precise than those of Fa-hsien
- then Lumbini must have been just a few miles further on.
According to the Buddhist scriptures, the Rohini River
constituted the border between the Sakyan clans of Kapilavastu and Koliya,
and the Lumbini pleasure-park was used by these clans for
their mutual recreation. From
this it would appear that they thus regarded Lumbini as a territorially
‘neutral’ site, which presumably lay on or close to this river border.
‘About one and-a-half miles to the north-west of Gorakhpur,
close to the junction of the Rohini with the Rapti, is a large and high mound,
the ruins of the ancient Domangarh, said to have been founded by, and to have
received the name from, a ruling tribe called Dom-kattar. The bricks which
compose the interior or oldest portion of the ruins of Domangarh are very large
and thick, and of a square shape. During the construction of the Bengal and
North-West Railway, in 1884, a relic-casket was discovered near this khera
containing an amulet of thin plate gold, representing Yasodhara and Rahula, the
wife and son of prince Siddhartha, as well as the ornaments of a child. The
relics are deposited in Lucknow Provincial Museum.’ .
The interment of a relic-casket at Domingarh reveals that it
was once a sacred Buddhist place (there are stupa remains still present at the
site). The representations on the amulet are of interest, whilst the large size
and square shape of the oldest bricks strongly suggest that they are Mauryan,
and may therefore be part of the Asokan stupa mentioned by Yuan-chuang at
Lumbini.. Kushan terracottas (1st-3rd centuries
AD) and Northern Black Polished Ware (500-100 BC) have recently been discovered
at Domingarh, these artefacts being housed in the Purvayatan Museum at
Gorakhpur University. These latter finds push the dating of this site’s
occupation back to a very ancient period indeed, the NBP Ware finds being
possibly contemporaneous with the Buddha himself. .
Domingarh lies about 14 miles east of Maghar (see map)
bearings which would accord with those travelled by Yuan-chuang between
Kapilavastu and Lumbini.
Moreover, its position is in precise agreement with the bearing – 35 miles east
– which was given by both pilgrims for their next place of visit, which
was that of the Rama Stupa (which I take to be the Ramabhar Stupa, for reasons
given below) and it is, indeed, directly en route from Maghar to this stupa.
Domingarh lies on the Rohini river (which as noted above, marked the border
between the Sakyan clans of Kapilavastu and Koliya)
and since - before the railway – the site became an island in this river during
the rains, it would thus have been regarded as a ‘neutral’ recreational place
by the two neighbouring Sakyan clans in consequence. It is still a pleasant
place to visit, being on a slightly elevated stretch of ground with fresh air
and good views, and local Europeans even built a sanatorium - a place of
healing - upon it, and would visit it for purposes of recreation. Close to it,
curiously, is a village called Koliya, and the great mediaeval saint,
Gorakhnath (whom many regard as a crypto-Buddhist) chose a nearby site for his
ashram. Local information has it that Domingarh was named after a queen ; this
may link with Yuan-chuang’s version of ‘Lumbini’ as ‘La-fa-ni’ (‘beautiful
woman’) whilst other accounts state that Lumbini was named after a Koliyan
queen.
Both pilgrims report that having left the Lumbini Garden, they
travelled east 200 li / 5 yojanas (about 35 miles) to ‘Lan-mo’ (Rama) where
they found an Asokan stupa, with its attendant vihara, situated beside a lake.
Earlier traditions regarding the Rama stupa are mentioned by both pilgrims in
considerable detail. One of these traditions declared that it was the only
stupa containing relics of the Buddha which had remained untouched by Asoka,
whilst another tradition held that wild elephants had repeatedly paid homage at
the stupa with gifts of flowers..
Taking Domingarh as Lumbini, we find the Kasia site about 35 miles due east, bearings
which match those given by both pilgrims from Lumbini to the Rama Stupa. By far
the oldest structure at the Kasia site - the bricks are deemed to be Asokan -
is the Ramabhar Stupa (see map)
which, like the Rama stupa of the pilgrims, is situated beside a lake.. Whilst
this name – ‘Ramabhar’ – has always been a puzzle to scholars, I take it to
signify the stupa of Rama and its
attendant vihara (since
‘bhar/bihar’ = ‘vihara’ ). At
this site, a life-size statue of a seated Buddha (the ‘Matha-Kuar’) bore an
inscription – now abraded - which began with the words ‘Rama rupa’ (a rupa
being an image of the Buddha).. During excavations of 1904-5 a plaque was
discovered, also bearing a seated Buddha, showing a row of elephants
carrying flowers, precisely as depicted in the tradition mentioned by the pilgrims
for the Rama stupa. Most of the votive offerings which were found at the Kasia
complex were found at the Ramabhar stupa, a fact which attests to the stupa’s
position as the central sacred feature at this site. Since, according to
tradition, the Rama stupa’s Buddha-relic was left untouched by Asoka, this
relic would signify the Buddha's ‘parinirvanic presence’ at Kasia, thus
explaining the ‘parinirvana’ statue, the ‘parinirvana’ copperplate, and the
sealings of the ‘monastery of the Mahaparinirvana’, all of which were found at
this location..
At present, Kasia is identified with
the site of Kusinara, where the Buddha died; but if this identification were
correct, and we then backtracked from Kasia using the pilgrims’ accounts, we
would find Kapilavastu situated somewhere northwest of Allahabad, and Sravasti
located northwest of Lucknow. Nobody, I trust, would seriously attempt to
support such proposals.
From the Rama Stupa, both pilgrims travelled 100 li / 3
yojanas (about 21 miles) east to the spot where Siddhartha sent back his
charioteer, Khanna, following the flight from the palace. The scriptures state
that having left by the eastern gate of Kapilavastu at midnight, the prince
crossed the Anoma River at daybreak, and thus found safety within the
neighbouring kingdom of the Mallas. Having instructed Khanna to return to
Kapilavastu, Siddhartha then cut his hair, changed his royal robes for those of
an ascetic, and spent a few days at a nearby mango-grove before heading south.
Both of the Chinese pilgrims followed the prince’s escape
route from Kapilavastu, and their accounts reveal that not only had Siddhartha
travelled directly eastwards to reach
this place of renunciation (hence his well-known exit from the eastern gate of
Kapilavastu) but that in doing so he had left both his father’s domain, and
also – rather daringly - crossed Koliya,
the domain of his in-laws. Since both of these Sakyan territories were then
part of Kosala - and were in turn, subject to the rule of the king of Sravasti
- it would thus appear that the young prince had resolved to leave Kosala
entirely, and to flee to a place from which he could not be compelled to
return. Authorities agree that the eastern
border of Kosala was then the Great Gandak river. From the Rama Stupa, the
Chinese pilgrims travelled 3 yojanas / 100 li (21 miles) eastwards to this
‘Place of Renunciation’, and since this distance and direction also equate
precisely with those from the Ramabhar Stupa to the Great Gandak (see map)
it seems evident enough that this great river border was also the Anoma River
of the scriptures.
From Siddhartha’s ‘Place of Renunciation’, both pilgrims
travelled 180 li / 4 yojanas southeast to the Ashes Stupa of the Moriyas of
Pipphalivana (bearings which would indicate the Siwan District of western Bihar
: see map)
and from there, having travelled through a ‘great forest’ (Yuan-chuang) they
arrived at the site of Kusinara, where the Buddha died. Now while Fa-hsien
gives ‘12 yojanas east’ (about 84 miles) from the Ashes Stupa to the Kusinara
site, Yuan-chuang, contrary to his usual custom, gives no distance, but
corrects Fa-hsien’s direction to ‘northeast’. This overall distance and
direction is confirmed by the ‘Fang-chih’ moreover, which gives 500 li
northeast - also about 84 miles - for this journey. These bearings take us to
the ancient Champaran area of north-western Bihar, an historically fascinating
area, now sadly strife-torn and neglected, which nevertheless ‘presents an
immense field for research’ according to V. A. Smith. The Champaran gazetteer,
whilst referring to Yuan-chuang’s ‘great forest’, also mentions Champaran’s
glorious Vedic past:
‘Legendary history, local tradition, the names of places and
archaeological remains, all point to a prehistoric past. Local tradition
asserts that in the early ages Champaran was a dense primeval forest, in whose
solitude Brahman hermits studied the aranyakas, which, as their name
implies, were to be read in silvan retreats; and the name Champaran itself is
said to be derived from the fact that the district was formerly one vast forest
( aranya ) of Champa (magnolia) trees... it was a place of
retreat for Hindu ascetics, where, removed from worldly ambitions, they could
contemplate the Eternal Presence in the silence of a vast untrodden forest.
Various parts of the district are connected by ancient tradition with many of
the great Hindu rishis ... such as Valmiki, in whose hermitage Sita, the
banished spouse of Rama, is said to have taken shelter. This great sage is
reputed to have resided near Sangrampur, and the village is believed to be
indebted for its name (which means the city of the battle) to the famous fight
between Rama and his two sons, Lava and Kusha ... it seems probable that
Champaran was occupied at an early period by races of Aryan descent, and formed
part of the country in which the Videhas settled … and founded a great and
powerful kingdom. This kingdom was in course of time ruled over by king Janaka
... under his rule according to Hindu mythology, the kingdom of Mithila was the
most civilized in India. His court was a centre
of learning, and attracted all the most learned men of the time; Vedic
literature was enriched by the studies of the scholars who flocked there; his
chief priest, Yajnavalkya, inaugurated the stupendous task of revising the
Yajur Vedas; and the speculations of the monarch himself, enshrined in the
sacred works called the Upanishads, are still cherished by the Hindu
community.’
These details recall that in response to Ananda's plea not
to die in this ‘little wattle-and-daub town’, the Buddha replied that ‘long
ago’ - also a reference to Vedic times - Kusinara had once been a great royal
city called Kushavati. The Champaran area is noted for having what are believed
to be the only Vedic remains ever discovered in India (thought to be royal
tombs) at the site of Lauriya Nandangarh, where an Asokan pillar also stands.
Here several great burial mounds were found, in one of which were coffins
containing ‘unusually long skeletons’, presumably of ancient warrior-kings. I
believe that this was the region into which the young Siddhartha had first
ventured, seeking wisdom from its forest rishis, and that it was also
the area towards which he later struggled, despite sickness and pain, as his
deliberately-chosen place to die. There is compelling evidence to show that
this event - the parinibbana, or passing-away of the Buddha - occurred
at the site of Rampurva (see map)
near the present Indo-Nepalese border..
Both pilgrims agree with the Mahaparinibbana Sutta in
stating that the Buddha died on the bank of the river Hiranyavati (or
Ajitavati) between two sal trees, Yuan-chuang adding that Asoka had
commemorated the spot with a stone pillar. This pillar Yuan-chuang locates four
li - about a kilometre - northwest of the town of Kusinara at the time of his
visit. Another stone pillar was located to the north of the town, and marked
the place of the Buddha's cremation; this pillar he places ‘300 paces’ from the
river's edge. He also mentions a
‘yellowish-black’ soil at the site, which he believed might contain relics..
The Asokan site of Rampurva still awaits proper excavation,
most of it having disappeared beneath the alluvial deposits left by successive
inundations from a nearby large river. This river I take to be the one
mentioned by the two Chinese pilgrims. When they were discovered in 1877, the
two Asokan pillars at this site were situated 300 yards apart - exactly as
mentioned by Yuan-chuang for the two Kusinara pillars - and were also placed in
similar bearings to those given by this pilgrim, one being situated slightly to
the west of the other. The pilgrims
mention only two sites at which two Asokan pillars were found - those of
Sravasti and Kusinara - and Rampurva is the only site in India where there are two
Asokan pillars (there are none, I should add, at Kasia). The so-called ‘Southern Pillar’ at the Rampurva site I therefore
take to mark the place of the parinibbana, whilst the ‘Northern Pillar’
marked the Buddha's cremation-spot. At the time of its discovery, the
‘Southern’ pillar was situated between two mounds ; these mounds marked the
locations of the two sal trees. The material which covered these mounds was a
yellowish kankar, or lime, not known in this vicinity (it was also found
in the Lauriya Nandangarh mounds mentioned above); this I take to be the
curious ‘yellowish-black soil’ mentioned by Yuan-chuang at the Kusinara site.
Sir John Marshall declared that the ‘Southern’ pillar at Rampurva ‘appears to have
been wilfully mutilated, perhaps with the purpose of destroying some
inscription on it’ and
a large section of this pillar’s surface has indeed been deliberately hacked
away, a fact which doubtless accounted for its breakage at this point (see Fig. 13).
This
is clearly damage which is wholly commensurate with the removal of an
inscription, and
I shall assume that this deed was perpetrated by later enemies of Buddhism who
believed, as Yuan-chuang’s guides informed him, that it mentioned the details
of the Buddha’s final passing at this spot.
Finally, I note that Fa-hsien gives 12 yojanas - about 84
miles - as the distance between Kusinara and a stone pillar near Vaishali. If
this refers to the famous Asokan lion-pillar near this place - and no other
pillar has been found near there - then this distance matches that between
Rampurva and Vaishali (see map).
V. A. Smith noted that Yuan-chuang ‘expressly states that Vaishali lay on the
road from Pataliputra to Nepal. Basar (Vaishali) lies on the ancient royal road
from the capital (Pataliputra) to Nepal, marked by three of Asoka’s pillars,
which passed Kesariya, Lauriya Araraj, Betiya, Lauriya-Nandangarh, Chankigarh,
and Rampurva, entering the hills by the Bhikna Thori Pass’. This ‘ancient royal road’ is clearly marked,
with a double broken dotted line, on the 1" to 1 mile Survey of India maps. It was, I
believe, the ancient via regis that was trodden by the Buddha to
Kusinara (Rampurva), the same route being followed thereafter by Asoka, and
later, by the Chinese pilgrims themselves.
India should now reclaim
her greatest son, Siddhartha Gautama (at present, he’s Nepalese).
Unfortunately, despite the worldwide prestige – not to mention the revenue –
which this tremendous prize may bring, I believe that India will implacably
reject it as a poisoned chalice. After all, the Brahmins fought Indian Buddhism
for centuries before its final downfall, and they’re certainly not about to
welcome it back, as the ongoing struggle for the control of Bodh Gaya grimly
demonstrates. And what, too, about Kabir?
He is generally considered to be the greatest Indian religious figure
for a thousand years, and since everybody appears to want a piece of him –
Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus alike – then they’re not going to welcome the
proposal that he chose to die at the site of the Buddha’s home town either. And
what effect might this tremendous homecoming have on all those feisty Buddhist
Dalits, or on all those modern young Indians who know that Buddhism is now
‘cool’, and is much admired throughout the West? Small wonder then that there would now appear
to be an Indian conspiracy of silence upon these findings, and that everyone is
still trying to proceed as before, ‘wrapt in the old miasmal mist’. Buddhists,
however, should be well aware of this silence, for if the conclusions which are
set out above are correct – and some important people now think that they are -
then these critical sites of world history (which include two of the Four Holy
Places of Buddhism) have now been rediscovered following fifteen hundred years
of darkness, and there may not be another chance to set the record straight. It
really is as simple as that.
© T. A. Phelps, 2008. Comments on this article would be most
welcome, and should be sent to taphelken@hotmail.com
References
1. H. Luders, ‘On Some Brahmi
Inscriptions in the Lucknow Museum’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (UK)
1912, fn., p. 167. Fuhrer was then Assistant Editor (to Burgess) on the
Epigraphia Indica. See ref. 4 also.
2.
Proceedings of the Government of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Public
Works Department, B. & R. Branch, ‘Miscellaneous’, Aug. 1899, Proceeding
no. 100 (India Office Library,
London).
3.
A. A. Fuhrer, ‘The Sharqi Architecture of Jaunpur’ (1889), Archaeological
Survey of India Reports (New Imperial
Series) Vol. 11, p. 69.
4.
See ref. 1, pp. 161-8. Luders neglects to mention that Fuhrer had supplied
Buhler with the details of these and other inscriptions – almost 400 in all –
for Buhler’s assessment in the Epigraphia Indica, and epigraphists will now
have the unenviable task of establishing the authenticity of these items.
Immediately following Fuhrer’s exposure in 1898, Buhler drowned in Lake
Constance in mysterious circumstances, and since he had enthusiastically endorsed
all of Fuhrer’s supposed discoveries, one cannot help but wonder whether this
tragedy was accidental.
5.
See ref. 1 (Luders) pp. 176-79, and ‘Catalogue of Archaeological Exhibits in
the United Provinces Museum, Lucknow’ (Part 1: Inscriptions) by Pandit
Hirananda Shastri, 1915, fn. 4, p. 39.
6.
‘The Pioneer’ newspaper, Allahabad, 15th September, 1893, p. 3 ; J.
Burgess, ‘The Academy’ (London) 44 (October 14th, 1893) p. 324 ;
Annual Progress Report (A. Fuhrer) Arch. Survey of India, N. -W. P. & Oudh Circle, y/e 1894, para. 22 ; and P.
C. Mukherji, ‘A Report on a Tour of
Exploration of the Antiquities in the Tarai, Nepal’, Archaeological Survey of
India Reports, New Imperial Series, Vol. 26 (1901) p. 2 (n. b. not of V.
A. Smith’s ‘Prefatory Note’ to this work).
7.
Annual Progress Reports, Archaeological Survey, N. -W. P. and Oudh Circle,
Epigraphical Section, y/e 1895 and 1897. It would appear that Singh had
redirected Fuhrer to Nigliva (where Singh owned some villages) in 1895, but Fuhrer’s
earlier reports differ widely on the location of Singh’s supposed find. The first public notification was
Fuhrer’s 1893 ‘Pioneer’ item (see ref. 6).
According to this, Singh’s discovery was near Bairat, a village 21 miles
north of Bahadurganj in Nepal, but Fuhrer's 1894 Progress Report then alters
this to a spot near Nepalganj, 100 miles west of Singh's reported
location. So why did Fuhrer revise Singh’s account so drastically? Moreover,
according to Fuhrer’s 1893 ‘Pioneer’
account, Singh had discovered an Asokan ‘lion-pillar’ bearing all of of the
seven known Asokan pillar inscriptions as well as two exciting new ones in a
new script, these supposedly being ‘addressed to the Buddhist clergy of the
Visas, the early predecessors of the Bais of Nepal’. All this was, of course,
complete nonsense, and the pillar at Nigliva (1895) bore not the slightest
resemblance to this ‘lion-pillar’ with its nine Asokan inscriptions (which has
never been found, I need hardly add). But why didn’t Singh himself promptly
protest the untruthfulness of Fuhrer’s report when it appeared in the
‘Pioneer’? Since this newspaper was noted for its links to intelligence, and
Singh was a relative of the Maharajah of Balrampur (a powerful zamindari family which had aided the
British during the Mutiny) one wonders whether the original (1893) report was
some sort of ‘plant’, designed to further British ‘forward’ imperial interests
in Nepal. Whatever the event, this paved the way for all the other alleged
Asokan discoveries in the Nepalese Tarai (‘Rummindei’ included) but an increasingly paranoid Nepalese Government
soon put an end to these archaeological intrusions into its territory, and the
border became firmly closed to all such ‘surveys’ shortly thereafter (cf. Smith’s
fulminations on the matter in the JRAS (UK) 1897, pp. 619-21).
8.
Annual Progress Report for N-W. P. and Oudh,, Epigraphical Section, (Fuhrer)
y/e 1895, p. 1. The Architectural Section of this Report was mistaken in
stating that ‘In March 1895 the Architectural Surveyor accompanied Dr Fuhrer on
a short trip to Nigliva, Tahsil Tauliva, in the Nepal Tarai, to procure
photographs of a new Asokan edict pillar which was discovered there in 1893 by
Major Jaskaran Singh of Balrampur’. The photographs mentioned – which
accompanied both this Progress Report and Fuhrer’s later ‘Monograph’ (1897) –
show the inscribed Nigliva pillar stump after excavation, and as Fuhrer
himself states that Nepalese permission for this excavation was only given for
May, this shows that the Architectural Surveyor’s ‘short trip’ (which could
hardly have included Fuhrer’s Balrampur visit to Singh) had also occurred in
May, i.e. two months after Fuhrer’s initial arrival at Nigliva.
9.
‘A Monograph on Buddha Sakyamuni’s Birthplace’, by A. A. Fuhrer (1897) Arch.
Surv. of Northern India Reports, Vol. 6, p. 25 (reprinted in Varanasi (1972) as
‘Antiquities of Buddha Sakyamuni’s Birthplace’). See also ref. 8, p. 2.
10.
See ref. 6, Smith’s ‘Prefatory Note’ to Mukherji’s report, fn., p. 4.
11.
See ref. 2, Aug. 1899, Proceedings nos. 90-91, pp. 29-33 (India Office Library,
London). The same details are also disclosed in the Government of India
Proceedings (Part B), Department of Revenue & Agriculture, Archaeology
& Epigraphy, April 1899, File no. 6 ; see ‘Enclosure 1’ (Report) of letter
no. 53A, and also letter no. 41A in this file. (National Archives of India, New
Delhi). This report by Waddell and Hoey, detailing the results of their own
(1899) excursion into the Tarai, led to the Government suppression of Fuhrer’s
‘Monograph on Buddha Sakyamuni’s Birthplace’ shortly thereafter. In a letter
accompanying this report, Waddell stated that the alleged stupa of Konagamana
‘did not in reality exist - it was a pure fabrication to reconcile this false
identification with the descriptions of the Chinese pilgrims’. There is,
however, good reason to believe that the deception also extended to the
inscription itself. Hoey stated that
following his appointment at nearby Gorakhpur in 1892, he had ‘employed an
agent who travelled over these parts and the Nepal Tarai, and brought me notes
of the pillar at Nigali Sagar and other remains including Piprahwa and Rumindei’.
In 1893 Hoey befriended Khadga Shamsher, the Governor of this Tarai
area, who ‘sent me rubbings from pillars, but these were not of Asoka
lettering’. From this it is evident that
since Hoey knew about the Nigliva pillar before Fuhrer’s arrival (and
according to Fuhrer this pillar was ‘known far and wide to the people of the
Tarai’) it would also have been included in Khadga Shamsher’s earlier
examinations on Hoey’s behalf. But
whereas Shamsher found no Asokan inscription in 1893, Fuhrer supposedly arrived
at Nigliva in 1895 and found an inscription ‘visible above ground’, and without
any need for excavation. And if, as
Fuhrer states, the local villagers were aware of this inscription also, then
why hadn’t they alerted the Governor to it during his earlier examination of the site?
12.
See ref. 9 (Fuhrer, Monograph ) pp. 33-4.
13.
See ref. 7, y/e 1896, p. 2.
14.
See ref. 8 (Fuhrer) and ‘The Birthplace of Gautama Buddha’, by V. A. Smith,
JRAS (UK) 1897, fn., p. 617.
16.
‘The Life of Buddha’, by E. J. Thomas (1927) fn., p. 18.
17.
See ref. 6 (Mukherji) pp. 4, 43, and
Plate 1. See also V. A. Smith, Annual Progress Report, Archaeological Survey
Circle, N. -W. P. & Oudh, y/e 1899, p. 8.
18.
‘Nepal’, by Perceval Landon (1928) Vol. 2, p. 76.
19.
‘Nepal under the Ranas’, by Adrian Sever (1993) p. 469. See also ‘Princess’, by
Vijayaraje Scindia (1985) pp. 5-8.
20.
See ref. 2, Aug. 1899, proc. no. 12 (p. 5).
21.
‘Kapilavastu in the Buddhist Books’, by Thomas Watters, JRAS (UK) 1898, p. 563.
23.
See ‘She-Kia-Fang-Che’, trans. by P. C. Bagchi (Calcutta, 1959) p. 69. A noted
Sinologist, who has consulted a recent Chinese variorum of the Fang-chih,
assures me that Bagchi’s translation, whilst ‘not very good’, is nevertheless
correct upon this most important point. There is no mention whatsoever of any
inscription on the Lumbini pillar in the Fang-chih text, and Watters was
far too good a scholar to have made such an absurd blunder.
24.
See ref. 14 (Smith) p. 619.
25.
See ref. 21 (Watters) p. 547.
26.
See ref. 6 (Smith’s ‘Prefatory Note’) p. 17.
27.
In the Preface to Watters’ book, Rhys Davids wrote that ‘We have
thought it best to leave Mr Watters’s Ms. untouched, and to print the work as
it stands’. This statement was yet another demonstrable lie. Rhys Davids was
evidently unaware that Watters had already published a considerable portion of
this work in an earlier series of articles entitled ‘The Shadow of a Pilgrim’
(there are extracts from these online) in ‘The China Review’, Vols. 18-20
(1890-92). A comparison of the text of these articles with that of the book
discloses that these posthumous editors of Watters had, in fact, substantially
tampered with his original text, omitting entire paragraphs and radically
rearranging others. Unfortunately, these
‘China Review’ articles stop just short of Yuan-chuang’s account of his visit
to the Kapilavastu area, so we will never know just exactly what Watters did write in this subsequent section of
his work. I also note that although Watters tentatively referred to the Lumbini inscription in his
earlier ‘Kapilavastu in the Buddhist Books’ (JRAS 1898, pp. 533-71) he made no
mention of this phony ‘Fang-chih’ reference in this article. But then, this was published while he was
still alive.
28.
A. A. Fuhrer, Annual Progress Report, Archaeological Survey, N. -W. P. &
Oudh Circle. y/e 1898, p. 2. See also ref. 6 (Smith’s 'Prefatory Note' to
Mukherji's report) p. 4, and also ref. 17 (Smith, Ann. Prog. Rep. 1899) pp.
1-2.
29.
Government of India Proceedings (Part B),
Department of Revenue & Agriculture (Archaeology & Epigraphy section),
Aug. 1898, File no. 24 of 1898, Proceedings nos. 7-10. (National Archives of
India, New Delhi).
30.
Ibid. See also ref. 6 (Smith’s ‘Prefatory Note’ to Mukherji’s report) p. 4.
31.
See ref. 7, y/e 1897, p. 3; and ref. 9 (Fuhrer, Monograph) Chapter 5,
concluding paragraph.
33.
‘Development of Buddhism in Uttar Pradesh’, by N. Dutt and K. D. Bajpai,
(Lucknow, 1956) p. 330.
34.
‘Asokan Pillars: A Reassessment of the Evidence (2)’, by John Irwin, Burlington
Magazine, Vol. 115, p. 714 (Nov. 1973) ;
J. F. Fleet, ‘The Rummindei Inscription and the
Conversion of Asoka to Buddhism’, JRAS (UK) 1908, p. 472. The remarks on the
‘Lumbani’ pillar by W. C. Peppe are
taken from his initial draft of the JRAS account of his alleged Piprahwa discoveries, which was privately printed in
Calcutta (n. d.) by J. H. H. Peppe. A copy of it can be seen in the few Peppe
Papers which are in the custody of the Department of South Asian Studies at
Cambridge University, and it offers a markedly different version of the
Piprahwa events from that seen in his July 1898 JRAS account, which was heavily
edited by the ubiquitous V. A. Smith before publication.
35.
‘The Birthplace of Gautama Buddha’, by V. A. Smith, JRAS (UK) 1897, p. 618.
36.
See ref. 9, pp. 27-8, and Fuhrer’s Annual Progress Report, Archaeological
Survey, N. -W. P. and Oudh Circle, Epigraphical Section, y/e 1897, pp. 3-4.
This is not, of course, the 12 th century Tapu Malla inscription
near the top of the pillar, nor the Tibetan ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’ inscription
close to it. And despite returning to the site with his draughtsman (who
appears to have been unaccountably absent when Fuhrer first appeared at
the site) no photograph or drawing was made of this most important item, and
nobody else has since made any reference to it either.
37. Epigraphia Indica, vol. 5, p. 5 (Buhler) and ref. 9, p. 34 (Fuhrer).
38. Commenting on an inscription on
the Wardak Vase (2nd century AD) N. G. Majumdar writes that ‘the
name is Sankritized as Śakyamuni’ (Epigraphia Indica, Vol. 24, p. 2).
Though I can find no other instance of sakyamuni - as distinct from sakamuni – in any
other Brahmi inscription, the term occurs in ten Kharosthi inscriptions. Of
these, six also show sakamuni, while the four showing sakyamuni – those
on the Avaca, Kurram, and two Wardak caskets – were all found in the Gandhara
area, viz, north-western Pakistan / eastern Afghanistan, being written in the
Kharosthi script and utilising the Gandhari Prakrit.
41. See article ‘Asokan Pillar at
Lumbini : Additional Information’ (in Nepali) by Tara
Nanda Mishra, published in the Saturday supplement to the ‘Gorkhapatra’
newspaper, Kathmandu, 27 Baisakh, 2043 (1986) and ‘Evolution of Buddhism and
Archaeological Excavations in Lumbini’, by Tara Nanda Mishra, in ‘Ancient
Nepal’, no. 155, June 2004.
42. See ref. 6 (Mukherji) pp. 35-6
and Plates 21 & 22. The former
‘modern, mean construction’ (Fuhrer, 1897) has recently been removed from the
face of the earth, and has since been replaced by a larger (and even more
modern) construction.
46. V. A. Smith, ‘The Piprahwa Stupa’, JRAS (UK) 1898, p. 868. See also
Mahabodhi Society Journal (Calcutta) May 1900, pp. 2-3.
47. Govt. of India Proceedings (Part B),
Department of Revenue & Agriculture, (Archaeology & Epigraphy section),
Aug. 1898, Proceedings no. 15, File no. 30 of 1898, p. 2. (National Archives of
India, New Delhi).
48. See ref. 29. In a letter to U Ma
dated 19th November, 1896, Fuhrer writes : ‘My Dear Phongyi, The
relics of Tathagata, sent off yesterday, were found in the stupa erected by the
Sakyas of Kapilavastu over the corporeal relics (saririka-dhatus) of the
Lord. The relics were found by me during
an excavation in 1886, and are placed in the same relic-casket of soapstone in
which they were found. The four votive tablets of Buddha surrounded the
relic-casket. The ancient inscription
found on the spot with the relics will follow, as I wish to prepare a
transcript and translation of the same for you’. Since Peppe was deemed to have
made an identical discovery a year later (viz., that of an inscribed soapstone
casket containing those relics of the Buddha that were accorded to the Sakyas
of Kapilavastu after the Buddha’s cremation) it would appear that this earlier
deception was thus merely a ‘dry run’, as it were, for the supposed Piprahwa finds of 1898.
From this letter it will also be seen that Fuhrer sent a bogus soapstone
relic casket to U Ma, but no details can now be traced about this item - its
appearance, how Fuhrer obtained it, or its subsequent fate - and no details of
the alleged inscription can now be traced either. Fuhrer’s letters to U Ma - there are eleven of them, stretching
between 1896 to 1898 - have never seen the public light of day, and make for
instructive and entertaining reading. For their details, see ref. 29.
51.
Charles Allen, ‘The Buddha and Dr Fuhrer’ (2008) p. 260. See also ‘ The Sunday Times Magazine’ article
cited in ref. 53.
52. ‘Notes on the Exploration of
Vaisali’, by Theodor Bloch, ASI Annual Report, Bengal Circle, y/e April 1904,
p. 15.
53. See Buhler’s ‘A Preliminary Note
on a Recently Discovered Sakyan Inscription’, JRAS (UK) 1898. Having received
an early copy of the inscription from Fuhrer, Buhler wrote back and ‘begged Mr
Peppe to look if any traces of the required I in the first word, of the
medial I in the second, and of a vowel-mark in the last syllable of bhagavata
are visible’, all these additional details being duly present when the final
copy of the inscription was published. The caskets (including the inscribed
item) are now in the custody of the Indian Museum, Calcutta. No drawing or
photograph was ever made of the missing (summit) casket however, the earliest
of the supposed finds. It is absent from the Indian Museum’s collection (and
Accession List) of the Piprahwa items, and no mention of it occurs in Smith’s
detailed list of the Piprahwa finds either (see ref. 46 (Smith) pp.
868-70). Of the twenty drawings of the
Sagarwa and Piprahwa items which were listed in Fuhrer’s 1898 Progress Report,
the three Piprahwa drawings are now missing from the ASI archives at Agra
(including the drawing of the inscribed casket). As for the Piprahwa jewellery,
Smith stated that ‘Mr Peppe has generously placed all the objects discovered at
the disposal of Government, subject to the retention by him, on behalf of the
proprietors of the estate, of a reasonable number of duplicates of the smaller
objects’ (see ref. 47, Smith's reference to those ‘duplicates’ being later
repeated in the JRAS : see ref. 46).
Since recent events have shown, however, that Peppe retained one-third - 360 pieces - of the original
items of Piprahwa jewellery, it is evident that this proposal to ‘place
all the objects discovered at the disposal of Government’ was not met, and the
question thus arises as to whether these items were unlawfully retained
thereafter (see ‘The Sunday Times Magazine’ (UK) March 21st, 2004, pp. 36-42).
One also wonders why Smith found it necessary to lie - to central Government,
no less - upon the matter of those ‘duplicates’.
54. ‘Buddhism in England’ (Journal
of the Buddhist Society, London) July 1931, pp. 61-4; Oct. 1931, p. 78; Mar-
Apr. 1932, p. 180.
55. ‘Political and Secret’, Home
Correspondence, 1898 (India Office Library,
London). The official correspondence immediately following this discovery (see
ref. 47) draws attention to the political advantages to be gained from awarding
the relics to surrounding Buddhist countries, and also makes various pointed
references to the presence in India at this time of a Siamese crown prince,
Jinavarmavansa - a cousin to the King - who soon showed a keen interest in
acquiring the bone relics for Siam.
56. See ‘Discovery of Kapilavastu’,
by K. M. Srivastava (1986), ‘Buddha's
Relics from Kapilavastu’ (same author) 1986, and ‘Excavations at Piprahwa and Ganwaria’ (1996). He also claimed to have
discovered - precisely as Debala Mitra had earlier predicted - clay sealings
bearing the word ‘Kapilavastu’, in monastic remains adjacent to the stupa
(though neither Peppe nor Mukherji had found a single instance of these when
they had earlier excavated at these selfsame remains). Alarmed by these claims however, that doyen
of Buddhist archaeologists, Herbert Härtel, declared sharply at the 14th
International EASAA Conference in Rome (1997) that ‘it is high time to set a
token of ‘scientific correctness’ in this extremely important matter’, but his
call for action went unheeded, authorities worldwide preferring to maintain a
deafening silence instead (see Herbert Härtel, ‘On the Dating of the Piprahwa
Vases’, in ‘South Asian Archaeology 1997’, Rome, 2000). In 2006, a conference was held under the
auspices of the Royal Asiatic Society at Harewood House, in England, in an
attempt to ‘clear the air’ over the vexed problem of Piprahwa, but it was
decided not to publish the findings that were then disclosed (some of which
have been published in this paper) the authorities electing, yet again, to
discreetly close the lid on this particular Pandora’s box. It is, in fact, high
time that this tiresome old ‘relic of Empire’ was finally put to bed, but since
many powerful agendas are at stake here – religious, political, financial, and
academic - this is unlikely to happen at present.
58. Throughout this essay I have
utilised Sir H. M. Elliot’s conclusion that the yojana of Fa-hsien was ‘as
nearly as possible’ 7 miles, as revealed by the distances between known sites,
e. g. Vaishali to Pataliputra (Patna) - 35 miles - which is given by Fa-hsien
as 5 yojanas ; Elliot cites further examples also (‘Memoirs of the History,
Folk-lore, and Distribution of the Races of the North-Western Provinces of
India’, by Sir H. M. Elliot (1869) Vol. 2, pp. 195-6). This, in turn, shows the li of Yuan-chuang to
have been about 308 yards, since this pilgrim cites 40 li to the yojana.
61. ‘The Site of Sravasti’, by J. Ph. Vogel, JRAS (UK) 1908,
pp. 971-5, and ‘Archaeological Exploration in India, 1907-8’, by J. H. Marshall, JRAS (UK) 1908, pp. 1098-1104.
62. H. C. Conybeare, ‘Statistical, Descriptive and
Historical Account of the North-Western Provinces of India’ (Vol. 6) 1881, p. 716.
63. ‘Archaeological Research on
Ancient Buddhist Sites’, by Herbert Härtel, in ‘The Dating of the Historical
Buddha’ (Pt.1) p. 62, (ed. Heinz Bechert, 1991).
64. ‘A Weaver Named Kabir’, by
Charlotte Vaudeville (1993) pp. 56 and 61-2. According to Kabir, Maghar was
‘haramba’, from the Arabic ‘haram’, meaning ‘forbidden’ (the word ‘harem’
derives from the same root).
Interestingly, a young Hindu at nearby Gorakhpur told me that his mother
declared that it was unlucky to think of either Maghar or the (Buddhist) Kasia
site in the early morning, a tradition also indicative of the ‘forbidden’
Buddhist nature of both places.
65. Gregory Schopen, ‘Burial ‘Ad
Sanctos’ and the Physical Presence of the Buddha in Early Indian Buddhism’:
Religion, Vol. 17, pp. 193-225 (1987). The issue of the Buddha’s ‘parinirvanic
presence’ in stupas, images, relics, places, etc., is also examined in
‘Embodying the Dharma’, ed. by K. Trainor and D. Germano (New York, 2004) and
‘Relics of the Buddha’, by John S. Strong (Princeton University Press,
2004). See also ref. 84 (below).
66. ‘Report of Tours in Gorakhpur,
Saran, and Ghazipur in 1878-80’, by A. C. L. Carlleyle, Archaeological Survey
of India Reports (Old Series)
Vol. 22, p. 72, (1885). See also ref. 64 (Vaudeville) p. 61-2. It is noteworthy that Carlleyle himself made
not the slightest attempt to follow the implications of this extraordinary
statement (and alas, gave no indications of its origin either) but his use of
the word ‘reputed’ suggests that this information came from a local source.
Even more extraordinary is the fact that nobody has since made the glaringly
obvious connection between Carlleyle’s statement and the location of Kapilavastu,
given the bearings which are cited by the pilgrims. Here, surely, was the key
to the real whereabouts of Kapilavastu staring everyone right in the face.
67. See ref. 22 (Watters) p. 1., and
‘Travels of Fa-Hsien’, by H. A. Giles, p. 36 (1926). The pilgrims also visited
the so-called ‘Scene of the Sakyan Massacre’, where Sakyan youths were said to
have beem slaughtered in a vain attempt to ward off the attack on Kapilavastu.
Since both pilgrims place this site to the north-west of the city, this provides
yet further evidence of the fact that Kapilavastu lay to the south-east of
Sravasti, from whence the attack came. Yuan-chuang also noted the remains of
around 1000 ruined monasteries and ten ruined cities in the Kapilavastu region.
Whilst such features appear to be absent from the areas around the present
nominations for the site of Kapilavastu, Carlleyle noted that the remains at
Tameshwar, near to Maghar, appeared to be those of ‘an ancient city of
considerable size and importance... (with) many Buddhist viharas and
monasteries’. Similar nearby sites were also noted by Carlleyle at the time of
his visits in the 1870s - Koron-dih, Mahasthan, Bakhira-dih, etc. All still
await excavation.
69. ‘The History, Antiquities,
Topography, and Statistics of Eastern India’, (usually referred to as ‘Eastern India’) by Francis
Buchanan-Hamilton (ed. R. M. Martin) Vol. 2, p. 393 (1838). The ‘Thakur-dih’ area is behind the very
northernmost houses of the village, immediately to the south of the
Gorakhpur-Basti road, and can be accessed from an old road/track which runs to
the east of the main turn off into Maghar. It is near to
Ghanshiampur. I would welcome any
further information on this site (see my email address at the end of this
paper). According to a recent website, Buddhist pilgrims are now increasingly
visiting Maghar (presumably as a result of reading my conclusions) and the UP
government has proposed that a park be built there in consequence. If so, it is much to be hoped that
archaeological considerations are held uppermost in any such ‘development’.
70. This information, it should be
noted, emerged quite spontaneously, and with no prompting from me. Such local traditions often persist strongly
in rural areas. On rediscovering the
remains of the ‘lost’ 7th century Chinese Nestorian Christian
monastery of Da Qin in 1998, Martin Palmer discovered that local sources were
also perfectly well aware of the former existence of the place, the tradition
having persisted there for 1400 years.
71.
‘A Manual of Budhism’, by R. Spence Hardy (1853) p. 144. Since the present Lumbini site lies 27 kms.
west of this river border, this would
thus have located it deep inside any former Kapilavastu territory, and
it would hardly have been considerd ‘neutral’ in consequence.
72. ‘Monumental Antiquities and
Inscriptions of the North-Western Provinces’, by A. A. Fuhrer (1891) p. 242.
See also Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (Part 1) p. 56 (1884),
and Minutes of the Managing Committee (North-Western Provinces and Oudh
Provincial Museum) Vol. 1, 1885-6, Appendix A (p. 107). Since Lucknow Museum
has informed me that neither this casket nor its associated items can now be
traced, no date for this deposit is presently available (though since coins
were also found, this strongly suggests a Kushan provenance). For earlier
topographical accounts of the site, see ref. 69 (Buchanan-Hamilton) pp. 352-3,
and ref. 66 (Carlleyle) pp. 64-7. Buchanan-Hamilton referred to the presence of
‘many small detached heaps’ at the site during his visit in the early 1800s :
were these votive stupas, one wonders? He also mentions two ancient shrines of
Mohammedan holy men at Domingarh. Doubtless these were Sufi pirs,
remarkably eclectic in their spiritual outlook, whose cult ‘often developed by
taking over an old Buddhistical site’ according to Prof. Vaudeville (as Kabir
did at Maghar). Though the decline of Buddhism in India often saw the
conversion of remaining Indian Buddhists to Islam, this was done largely for
pragmatic social reasons, and Buddhist sites and beliefs were by no means
promptly abandoned by such conversions.
74.
‘Archaeological Geography of the Ganga Plain’, by Dilip Chakrabarti (2001)
p. 219. Chakrabarti states that this was ‘personal information’ from
Krishnanand Tripathi, of the Department of Ancient History at Gorakhpur
University. When I telephoned Tripathi however, he chose not to answer my
questions, referring me instead to Dr P. N. Singh of the Banaras Hindu
University. A colleague of his, Dr R. N. Singh, promised to supply me with
further details on the matter, but has signally failed to do so, referring
darkly to unspecified ‘socio-political problems’ instead. I have thus been
unable to obtain details of the BHU dig, when it was conducted, or by whom, and
if anyone can obtain further details on these finds, please let me know (my
email address is given above). Equally inexplicable – given the important 1884
discoveries noted in ref. 72 - is the absence of any earlier excavation
at this site, particularly given the continued presence of both V. A. Smith and
Hoey at Gorakhpur during the 1890s. An old bed of the Rohini formerly ran to
the east of the Domingarh mound
(cf. Yuan-chuang’s ‘little river of oil’) and if my conclusion that Domingarh
was Lumbini is correct, then any Asokan pillar remains
should be sought in this area. A road has recently been driven through the
site, though it obviously warrants careful, prompt, and extensive
archaeological excavation. As noted above however, the 1884 relic-casket find
was made during the local railway construction, and the records show that great
difficulty was had in providing support for the bridge across the Rohini. One
suspects that the Domingarh site may thus have been plundered for ballast
purposes, and like much else of ancient India, now lie lost forever beneath such works.
75. See ref. 22 (Watters) p. 15, and also ref. 69
(Buchanan-Hamilton) vol. 2, pp. 352-3: ‘It is called the Domingarh, or the
castle of the Domlady’.
77. Hirananda Sastri, Annual Report,
Archaeological Survey of India (Northern Circle)
1910-11, p. 69. Sastri mentions ‘the very heavy square bricks of the Mauryan
type of which it is mostly built’. Cf. the oldest bricks, ‘very large and
thick, and of a square shape’, found at the Domingarh site mentioned earlier,
and the similar bricks found at Rampurva (see section below on ‘Kusinara’)
which Daya Ram Sahni identified as ‘the remnants of an extensive floor laid in
Asoka’s time’ (‘Excavations at Rampurva’, ASI Director-General’s Report,
1907-08, p. 183).
78. The Ramabhar Tal (lake) : see A.
Cunningham, Archaeological Survey of India Reports (Old Series)
Vol. 1, Plate 27, and also ref. 77 (Sastri) p. 69. I note that in an 1893
letter to Hoey, L. A. Waddell had likewise concluded that ‘Kasia and the
Ramabhar Chour (sic) is Ramagram’ (Papers of V. A. Smith, Special Collections
and Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford University). See ref. 89 also.
79. The stupa appeared to be ‘the
centre of a group of religious buildings’; see ref. 77 (Sastri) p. 70.
80. See ‘Kusinara or Kusinagara’, by
V. A. Smith, JRAS (UK) 1902, p. 153 ;
‘Bihar ( = vihara)’. The
State of Bihar is also said to have drawn its name from Muslim chroniclers, who
noted the large number of Buddhist viharas in the province.
81. See ref. 69 (Buchanan-Hamilton)
pp. 357-8. Sastri mentions an inscribed
stone found at the south-eastern aspect of this stupa, which ‘has some five
lines of writing on it which is much worn’ (ASI Annual Report, Northern Circle,
1911-12, p. 140). Unfortunately, he
gives no date, script, or possible content of this inscription, and the stone
itself now appears to have been either buried or removed. Was this the
inscription seen by Yuan-chuang, which purportedly mentioned the appearance of
the naga from the lake during Asoka’s visit?
82. J. Ph. Vogel, Annual Report,
Archaeological Survey of India (Punjab and United
Provinces Circle) 1904-5, p. 47. What is
decipherable of the ‘inscription, greatly obliterated,’ which is found on this
plaque?
84. ‘Simply put, the presence of
relics is equal to the presence of the Buddha. This is confirmed by early
inscriptions.’ (‘Buddhist Reliquaries From Ancient India’, by Michael Willis, p. 14, British Museum Publications,
2000). See also ref. 65.
85. See ref. 22 (Watters) pp. 25-6,
and ref. 23 (Bagchi) p. 70. It should always be borne in mind, I feel, that for
Fa-hsien ‘east’ could mean anywhere east of a north-south axis (ditto with
regard to other directions also) whilst for Yuan-chuang, similarly,
‘north-east’ meant anywhere between north and east. On the fascinating question
of how the pilgrims navigated between sites, it must be remembered that the
Chinese had utilised the lodestone as early as the 4th century BC, and that this
had been improved by the introduction of a magnetized needle by 600 AD (which
may account for Yuan-chuang's greater accuracy in these matters). As monks they
would also have stayed in monasteries en route, where the resident monks would
doubtless have supplied them with advice, guides, etc for their onward
journey.
88. See ref. 80 (Smith) pp. 154-5,
ref. 78 (Cunningham) p. 70, and Bengal Administration Reports for 1868-69,
para. 273. The reports on this
intriguing find are somewhat garbled, one saying ‘leaden coffins’, another an
‘iron coffin’. Were these perhaps Malla ( = ‘athlete’) skeletons, one wonders?
The Buddha’s body was cremated inside two ‘iron vessels’, according to the
Mahaparinibbana Sutta.
89. Having arrived at this
conclusion by the simple expedient of following, on a map, the distances and
directions from Sravasti to Kusinara which are given by the Chinese pilgrims, I
was intrigued to note that L. A. Waddell, presumably using the same process,
had arrived at a similar conclusion : ‘I believe that Kusinagara, where the
Buddha died, may be ultimately found to the north of Bettiah, and in the line
of the Asoka-pillars which lead hither from Patna (Pataliputra)’ (‘A Tibetan
Guide-book to the Lost Sites of the Buddha's Birth and Death’, Journal of the
Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1896, p. 279). Rampurva lies thirty-odd miles north
of Bettiah along the Narkatiaganj-Gawnaha Road railway line, and about 3
kilometres s/w of the latter station. According to an unpublished 1897 report,
Waddell deputed P.C. Mukherji to ‘search for the site of the Buddha’s Parinirvana
in the jungly tract from Rampurva, where is an inscribed Asoka pillar, to
Bhikna Thori’. Waddell and I thus arrived at identical conclusions regarding
the whereabouts of both the Ramagrama and Kusinara sites simply by following
the pilgrims’ directions, and though he elected to choose Lauriya Nandangarh, I
am quite certain that he would have chosen nearby Rampurva if he had known that
there were two pillars at the site (a fact discovered later). Moreover,
one suspects that Sir John Marshall entertained similar notions also,
particularly after the reconfirmation of Sahet-Mahet as Sravasti : hence,
presumably, his evident interest in the apparently ‘missing’ inscription at
Rampurva (see ref. 97, below). The Mukherji/Waddell report is among V. A.
Smith’s papers at the Bodleian Library, Oxford (see ref. 78).
93. Daya Ram Sahni, ‘Excavations at
Rampurva’, Archaeological Survey of India, Director-General's Report (1907-8) p. 182 : ‘Up to the
depth of 7 feet the digging was quite easy, for we were digging through layers of
clay alternating at irregular intervals with sand, deposited obviously by some
large river...’
94. See ref. 66 (Carlleyle) : the
orientation arrow on Plate 6 (map) would appear to confirm this. See also ref.
93 (Sahni) p. 185. Since the pillars were subsequently moved to the top of the
western mound near the ‘Southern’ pillar (see Ann. Rep., Arch. Surv. of India, Eastern Circle, 1912-13, p. 36) their original find-spots
presumably await rediscovery at the site. Whilst the pillars at Sravasti have
never been found, a correspondent informs me that in 1976 he saw part of one in
use as a sugar-cane crusher in a nearby village, though on a later visit it had
disappeared.
96. See ref. 22 (Watters) pp. 39-40,
and Theodor Bloch, Archaeological Survey of India (Eastern Circle)
Annual Report, 1906-7, p. 121.
97. ‘Archaeological Exploration In
India, 1907-8’, by J. H. Marshall, JRAS (UK) 1908, p. 1088. Since
the upper part of this pillar was found lying on the Asokan flooring at the
site (which is about ten feet below the surface) other researchers have
concluded that it was broken at an early date, but I see no particular
necessity to endorse this proposal. The lion-capital on the ‘Northern’ pillar
would appear to have been deliberately - and literally – ‘defaced’ also (a
notorious Muslim practice) and Cunningham records that a Muslim
raiding-party, returning from Bengal, took cannon pot-shots at the nearby
Lauriya Nandangarh lion-capital in 1660, damaging it in the mouth. The pillars
at Rampurva could thus have been damaged along with these later events, and
with the entire site being heavily waterlogged – ‘a morass’, according to
Carlleyle and Garrick - the broken pieces from the ‘Southern’ pillar could
easily have sunk down through the silt thereafter. Long trenches, over two
metres deep, which were dug by Carlleyle in 1877, had silted over when Garrick
visited the site a mere three years later.
98. V. A. Smith points out - quite
correctly, in my opinion - that Fa-hsien's account regarding the location of
this ‘leave-taking’ pillar (which this pilgrim states was inscribed) is in
error, and that Yuan-chuang’s account is the more reliable in placing it close
to Vaisali (see ref. 80 (Smith) pp. 146-9). Since the present Vaisali pillar
appears to have sunk under its own vertical weight, its shaft has yet to be
fully revealed in its entirety, and the question of whether it is inscribed
remains unresolved in consequence.
99. ‘Vaisali’, by V. A. Smith, JRAS
(UK) 1902, pp. 270-1. See also ref. 66 (Carlleyle) p. 50. The maps are
available in the Map Room of the British Library, London, and the road is also
shown on Plate 1 of the ASI Reports (Old Series) Vol. 16. Doubtless, the long-lost villages mentioned
in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta lay along it - Kotigama, the Nadikas, Bhandagama,
Hatthigama, etc - and presumably lay about 1 yojana (7 miles) apart.
Illustrations
{The English translation of 'දඹදිව උරුමය හෙළයාටයි'
(The people in Sri Lanka only can claim the heritage of Dambadiva)} Part X-B
Buddhist Lumbini Park Vizag is very beautiful and situated near the R K Beach seaside.
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