1896. | L. A. Waddell—The Buddha’s Birth and Death. 275 
A Tibetan Guide-book to the lost Sites of the Buddha’s Birth and Death.— 
By L. A. Wavpett, M.B., LL.D. 
[Read, August, 1896]. 
I am surprised that no one seems to have noticed that the Acgoka- 
edict-pillar, which was found three years ago in the Nepalese tara by 
a Nepalese officer on a shooting excursion, has an importance far beyond 
that of its own mere inscription, interesting as that is, for it supplies a 
clue to the hitherto undiscovered birth-place of Gakya Muni, which 
after Bodh-Gay&a was perhaps the most celebrated Buddhist shrine, 
and which at Hiuen Tsiang’s visit in the 7th century A.D., contained 
magnificent structural remains including several inscribed Agoka-pillars 
and a monastery with 3,000 monks; and its exploration must throw a 
flood of light on the origin of the Cakya race and other problems of 
those almost prehistoric times in which Buddhism had its first begin- 
ings. 
This pillar of Konakamana in the Nepalese tarat, appears still to be 
fixed in its original position; and that most trustworthy topographer, © 
Hiuen Tsiang, records that the ‘city’ of Kapilavastu lay within seven 
miles or so to the north-west of this very identical pillar.1 ka Hian 
also states that that town lay one ydjana (about 7 miles) to the west of 
the stupa of this pillar.? 
This important indication which this new Acoka-pillar affords, 
struck me at once on reading Professor Bihler’s translation of its in- 
scription in the Academy of April 27th of 1895; butI find that the 
full official report on the pillar contains no reference to the indications 
which this pillar supplies us with in regard to the site of Kapilavastu 
and its suburbs. 
It is true that General Cunningham and one of his most incompe- 
tent assistants, some years ago claimed to have discovered this long lost 
city in the village of Bhuila in the Basti district of the N.-W. Provinces ; 
but that this identification was altogether false, like the General’s identi- 
fication of the not far distant Kasia as the site of the Buddha’s death, must 
1 Beal’s Si-yu-ki, II. 19. 2 id., I, xlix. 
