140 Memorandum on the Ancient bed of [No. 158. 



change had not taken place when that play was written in about the 

 eleventh century. st As they informed me that the Son was near at hand, 

 we rode to see it. In the course taken by the river Son below this 

 there are a number of trees, which they say lie in Muner. The tomb 

 of Sheikh Yahea, the father of Sheikh Shuruf Muner, is there. As 

 we had come so far, and come so near, I passed the Son*, and going two 

 or three kos down the river surveyed Muner. Having walked through 

 its gardens, I perambulated the Mausoleum, and coming to the banks 

 of the Son bathed in that river." 



Having established the fact that the Soane, in some former age prior 

 to 1529 A. D. united its waters with those of the Ganges in the vici- 

 nity of Patna, it is now to be considered how this fact supports the 

 opinion that the capital of Chundragupta was situated at the junction. 

 Sir W. Jones, Major Rennell, Wilson, and Wilford, concur that tradi- 

 tion assigns to this locality the ancient city of Pataliputra. Buchanan, 

 (in page 26, Volume I. Mr. Martin's edition) has the following 

 observation on this point: "I have found in this district (Patna) no 

 traditions concerning Chundragupta, nor his descendants the Bolipu- 

 tras, although Palibothra, his capital, is by Major Rennell supposed to 

 be the same with Pataliputra, or Patna. This city indeed is allowed 

 by the pundits to be called Pataliputra, but Pataliputra has no great 

 resemblance to Palibothra, nor can Patali be rationally considered as 

 a word of the same origin as Pali, said to be an ancient name of this 

 country and of its people and language." 



The following extract?, (freely translated) from the Brihud Kutha 

 (or Brihut Kutha,) a work supposed to have been written by Barach 

 ( Vararuchi) pundit in the time of Vikrumaditya, king of Oojeen, about 

 57 B. C. may not be uninteresting, as conveying a popular tradition 

 through the medium of a fiction, which however it must be owned 

 is more suited to the Arabian Nights than to the gravity of history. 



" In Kashomunee, a brahmin named Bhoom Deo, had two sons, 

 Kooshun and Bukshun, who married Soomut and Purmut, the 

 two daughters of Surub Siah Mooni. Soomut becoming pregnant, the 

 two husbands reflected that, as they had scarcely means of subsistence 



* He probably crossed near the present Ghat or Ferry at Koilwar. 

 t N. B. I believe this is not literally an extract, but a Potee, or tale, founded on 

 it by one Shunkur Dutt, and called " Patalipootur Pokyan," 



