1898.] Annual Address. 63 



but afterwards, when one of the ancient kings of Mathura attempted 

 to appropriate it, a brick stupa was built over it. This probably refers 

 to the second century before Christ, when the Jains settled in Mathura 

 and when they may have brought the casket with them from Bihar : 

 the king might be the Indo- Scythian Kanishka, who reigned about the 

 commencement of our era. 



While thus the period under review has been one of fundamental 

 importance for our knowledge of the history of Jainism and its founder, 

 it has not been altogether unfruitful with respect to the great rival 

 organisation of Buddhism. The history, indeed, of that order and of its 

 founder has long been well known, yet, curiously enough, until quite 

 recently, none of the localities connected with the most important events 

 in Buddha's personal history, such as his birth and death, had been iden- 

 tified. There was certainly one good reason for this curious circumstance ; 

 for, as it now turns out, those localities are outside our borders, within the 

 territory of Nepal, and therefore have been precluded from the search 

 operations of our archaeological surveys. 



With the discoveries in this respect the name of one of the mem- 

 bers of our Society, Dr. L. A. Waddell, the learned author of Buddhism 

 in Tibet, is prominently connected. The zeal with which he has 

 devoted a portion of his holidays and the opportunities afforded by 

 official tours to the search for long lost Buddhist localities cannot be 

 too highly praised. In 1891 he succeeded, on one of his tours, to dis- 

 cover near the village of Uren, in the district of Mungir, the site of 

 the celebrated Hermitage of Buddha, where that saint is reported by 

 Hiuen Tsiang to have rested for a season during the rains. Tlie full 

 details of this identification have been published by Dr. Waddell in our 

 Journal.^ Subsequent researches enabled him to discover in the 

 neighbourhood of Patna City what appears to be conclusive evidence of 

 the exact position of the great emperor Anoka's famous capital of 

 Pataliputra.^ The evidence thus furnished, in 1892, is at present being 

 followed up, so far as financial considerations permit, by the Government 

 of Bengal. 



The most important discovery, however, to which his studies of old 

 Buddhist history have led, is that of Buddha's birth-place in the neigh- 

 bourhood of a small village called Nigliva. This is situated, just beyond 

 the British frontiers, within the Nepalese Terai, about 20 miles north 

 of the Chillia Police Station in the Basti District. Rumours of the 

 existence near that place of one or more inscribed pillars had been cur- 



8 See Volume LXT, for 1892. 



9 Published in his pamphlet on the Discovery of the Exact Site of Asoka'i 

 Classical Capital of Pdtaliputra ; 1892. 



