250 ON THE CHRONOLOGY 



Sumapon, or Phulwaree, to call it by its modern 

 name, was, as the word imports, a pleaiure or flower 

 garden, belonging to the kings of Patna^ and fitu- 



, indeed, about ten miles W.S.W. from that city, 

 but, certainly, never lurrounded with fortifications, 

 which Annanta^ the author of the Mudra Edcjhqfa lays, 

 the abode of Chandra-Gupta was. It may be offered 

 in excuie, for fuch blunders as thefe, that the au- 

 thors of this, and the other poems and plays I have 

 mentioned, written on the fubjecl: of Chandra-Gupta , 

 which are certainly modern productions, were for- 

 eigners ; inhabitants, if not natives, of the Deccan ; 

 at leaft Annanla was, for he declares that he lived oil 

 the banks of the Godaveri. 



But though the foregoing confiderations mult place 

 the authority of thefe writers far below the ancients, 

 whom I have cited for the purpofe of determining the 

 iituation of Palibothra ; yet, if we confkler the fcene 

 of aclion, in connexion with the incidents of the 

 ftorv, in the Mudra RacJIiafa, it will afford us clear 

 evidence, that the city of Chandra -Gup a could not 

 have flood on the fite of Patna ; and, a pretty drong 

 prefumption alfo, that its real iituation was where I 

 have placed it, that is to fay, at no great diftance 

 from where Raje-mehal now Hands. For, fir ft, the 

 city was in the neighbourhood of fome hills which lay 

 to the fouthward of it. Their iituation is exprefflv 

 mentioned ; and for their contiguity, it may be in- 

 ferred, though the precife diftance be not fet down 

 from hence, that king Nanda's going out to hunt, his 

 retiring to the refcrvoir, among the lulls near Patal- 

 candara, to quench his third, his murder there, and 

 the fubfequent return of the ailaifin to the city with 

 matter's horfe, are all occurrences related, as having 

 happened on the fame day. The meflengers alfo 

 who were fent by the young king after the dis- 

 covery of the murder to fetch the body, exe- 

 cuted their commiflion and returned to the city 



the 



