Report of the Archaeological Survey. v 



well known five pats or prasthas which were demanded from Dur- 

 yodhan by Yudhishthira as the price of peace. These five pats, which 

 still exist, were Pdnipat, Sonpat, Indrpat, Tilpat, and Bdghpat, of 

 which all but the last were situated on the right or -western bank of 

 the Jumna. The term prastha, according to H. H. Wilson, means 

 anything " spread out or extended," and is commonly applied to any 

 level piece of ground, including also table-land on the top of a hill. 

 But its more literal and restricted meaning would appear to be that 

 particular extent of land which would require & prastha of seed, that 

 is, 48 double hands full, or about 48 imperial pints, or two-thirds of a 

 bushel. This was, no doubt, its original meaning, but in the lapse 

 of time it must gradually have acquired the meaning, which it still 

 has, of any good-sized piece of open plain. Indraprastha would 

 therefore mean the plain of Indra, which was, I presume, the name of 

 the person who first settled there. Popular tradition assigns the five 

 pats to the five Pandu brothers. 



5. The date of the occupation of Indraprastha as a Capital by 

 Yudhishthira, may, as I believe, be attributed, with some confidence, 

 to the latter half of the 15th century before Christ. The grounds 

 on which I base this belief are as follows : — 1st, that certain positions 

 of the planets, as recorded in the Mahdbhdrata, are shown by Bentley 

 to have taken place in 1424-25 B. C, who adds that " there is no 

 other year, either before that period or since, " in which they were so 

 situated." 2nd, in the Yishnu Purana it is stated that at the birth 

 of Parikshita, the son of Arjuna Pdndava, the seven Eishis were in 

 Maghd, and that when they are in Purva Ashdrha, JVanda will begin 

 to reign. Now, as the seven Eishis, or stars of the Great Bear, are 

 supposed to pass from one lunar asterism to another in 100 years, the 

 interval between Parikshita and Nanda will be 1,000 years. But in 

 the Bhagavata Purana this interval is said to be 1,015 years, which 

 added to 100 years, the duration of the reigns of the nine Nandas will 

 place the birth of Parikshita J, 115 years before the accession of 

 Chandra Gupta in 815 B. C, that is, in 1430 B. C. By this account 

 the birth of Parikshita, the son of Arjuna, took place just six years 

 before the Great War in B. C. 1424, These dates, which are 

 derived from two independent sources, mutually support each other 

 and therefore seem to me to be more worthy of credit than any other 

 Hindu dates of so remote a period. 



