Page:The Ancient Geography of India.djvu/458
408 THE ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA.
subdivided into two districts. In Banaodha these are
called Pachham-rdt and Purab-rdt, or the western and
eastern districts ; and in Uttara Kosala they are Gauda
(vulgarly Gondu) to the south of the Eapti, and Kosala
to the north of the Eapti, or Rdwati, as it is univer-
sally called in Oudh. Some of these names are found
in the Puranas. Thus, in the Yayu Purana, Lava the
son of Eama is said to have reigned in Uttara Eosala;
but in the Matsya Linga and Kurma Puranas, Srdvasti
is stated to be in Gauda. These apparent discrepancies
are satisfactorily explaiued when we learn that Gauda
is only a subdivision of Uttara Kosala, and that the
ruins of Sravasti have actually been discovered in the
district of Gauda, which is the Gonda of the maps.
The extent of Gauda is proved by the old name of
Balrampur on the Eapti, which was formerly Ra7n-
garli-Gauda. I presume, therefore, that both the
Gauda Brahnans and the Gauda Tac/as must originally
have belonged to this district, and not to the medi-
asval city of Gauda in Bengal. Brahmans of this name
are still numerous iu Ajudhya and Jahangirabad on
the right bank of the Ghagra river, in Gonda, Pa-
khapur, and Jaisni of the Gonda or Gauda district on
the left bank, and in many parts of the neighbouring
province of Gorakhpur. Ajiidltya, therefore, was the
capital of Banaodha, or Oudh to the south of the Gha-
gra, while Srdvasti was the capital of Uttara Kosala,
or Oudh to the north of the Ghagra.
The position of the famous city of Srdvasti, one of the most celebrated places in the annals of Buddhism, has long puzzled our best scholars. This was owing partly to the contradictory statements of the" Chinese pilgrims themselves, and partly to the want of a good