1845.] the River Soane and Site of Palibothra. 147 



of Government was probably the cause of the desertion of Patalipootra, 

 and of the oblivion of the name, except when awakened from time to 

 time by the faint echo of tradition. 



The site of the capital of Chundragupta having been fixed by the 

 evidence above adduced, the next step of the argument is to prove the 

 identity of Chundragupta with Sandracottas the king of the Prasii, 

 whose capital was designated Palibothra by Megasthenes, the ambas- 

 sador of Seleucus Nicator, the immediate successor of Alexander the 

 Great in the kingdom of Bactria. Athenseus, Diodorus Siculus, Quintus 

 Curtius, Plutarch, and other historians, mention Sandracottas as the 

 contemporary of Alexander. Professor Wilson, in his Preface to the 

 Mudra Rakshasa, observes that " Athenseus, as first noticed by Wilford 

 (A. R. vol. V. page 262,) and subsequently by Schlegel, writes the name 

 Sandrakoptus, and its other form, although more common, is very 

 possibly a mere error of the transcriber." I may here remark, that the 

 Greek alphabet having no letter which corresponds with " Ch," the 

 Greek historians were obliged to substitute either the X or the c 

 Thus Prachi (which signifies, according to Wilson, the people of the 

 East) was converted by the Greeks into Prasii, and the river 

 Chumbul into Sumbu. Diodorus Siculus, on the other hand, changed 

 Chandromas, a synonyme of Chandra* or Chundragupta, into " Xan- 

 dramas." If on the principle above explained, the initial S be re- 

 converted into " Ch,"and the final " S," the usual Greek termination, 

 be struck off, Sandrakoptas will become " Chandrakopta," which bears 

 so striking a resemblance to Chandragupta as to leave little or no 

 doubt of their identity. Professor Wilson has also pointed out the close 

 resemblance between the birth, parentage and history of Sandracottas 

 as described by the Grecian historians, and the account given of 

 Chundragupta in the Vishnooand Bhugwut Pur&nas. The similarity 

 of names, supported by the coincidence in the history of the individuals, 

 tends to establish the identity of persons, and no reasonable doubt can 

 therefore be entertained that the Sandracottas of the Greeks was the 

 Chundragupta of the Poorans. 



This point conceded, (and it having been shown that Patalipootra 

 was the capital of Chundragupta,) the identity of that city with Pa- 



* N. B. He is called by both names indifferently in the Mudra Rakshasa. 



