1892.] 
W. Hoey —Set Mcihet. 
39 
against the Sakyas, and (2) the stupa erected over the remains of the 
Sakya maidens. These two places are certain to have lain south of the 
stupa alluded to in the last para., and close to them was the great lake 
in which Yirudhaka is said to have perished. It is clear that Virudha- 
ka, according to the Buddhist fable or history, whichever we call it, 
perished in a lake, an ornamental water, by a conflagration which burned 
up a boat or pavilion in which he was. That this tank was the Awen- 
dlia Tal, I have no doubt. It still shows in places on its banks the 
traces of masonry probably of a ghat or embankments. The word may 
be a compound of Sanscrit ava and indha (burn), and thus afford 
internal demonstration of the propriety of this identification. 
I may add that there is reason to suppose from the general tenor of 
Hwen Thsang’s narrative that there was a palace near this tank, for we 
read of Virudhaka’s sending the women of his palace down to the 
banks of the lake and his disporting himself with them there. One local 
tradition localizes the spot to which the maiden ascended, who invoked 
the Sun, as narrated at p. 21, and says she went to the top of Ora Jhar. 
This fits in with the belief that Ora Jhar was a kingly residence. An¬ 
other tradition says that Ora Jhar was an armoury. It is not unlikely 
that when Prasenajit married Mallika, she being his junior queen, he 
may have placed her in a palace for her own special use, and this may 
have been that palace. Any how, the place cannot be what a popular 
derivation, based on the present form of the name, would imply ; a spot 
where sweepings gathered in baskets were thrown out. The name Ora 
Jhar or Orha Jhar* is applied to a high mound near Colonelganj in 
Gonda District, and to the Maniparbat at Ajudhia and to other places. 
It seems to me that it is probably a corruption of the Sanscrit urddhwa 
(high) ddhdra (eminence), and it devotes merely a high place or lofty 
eminence, as either affording a commanding view ora site for a building. 
Altogether, I believe, that Ora Jhar will be found to have been a terraced 
palace, such as that on the terrace of which Virudhaka saw Jeta walking, 
when he ordered his death and probably it w T as here that Virudhaka’s 
ladies of the seraglio were, when they went down to the ornamental 
water on the fatal day. There is no place that I know of to suit the 
story in Mahet. 
Near Ora Jhar is a mound in which I found only 3 concentric rings 
of brick wall, two of which I explored. It is called Panaliiya Jhar.fi 
What this place can have been I was long puzzled to know, but it seemed 
to me to have been a ring intended for some amusement, with a gradu- 
* I have heard both the aspirated and unaspirated forms used. 
f Explained from ‘ panhi ’ shoe to be the place where travelpers shook dust 
oft' their feet before entering city! ! 
