INTRODUCTION. influence their religion and their arts, and also very materially to modify even their language. So much so, indeed, that after some four thousand years of domination we should not be surprised if we have some difficulty in recovering traces of the original population, and could probably not do so, if some fragments of the people had not sought refuge in the hills on the north and south of the great Gangetic plain, and there have remained fossilised, or at least sufficiently permanent for purposes of investigation.
1. Hindu Temple, at Bahulârâ, near Bânkurâ.
SAISUNAGA DYNASTY, ABOUT B.C. 650 TO 318. Leaving these, which must, for the present at least, be considered as practically pre-historic times, we tread on surer ground when we approach the period when Buddha was born, and devoted his life to solve the problem of suffering and transmigration. There seems little reason for doubting that he was born about the year 560, taught during the reign of Bimbisara, the fifth king of the SaLrunuga dynasty, and died B.C. 480, 1 at the age of eighty, in the eighth year of Ajatajatru, the sixth king. 2 New sources of information regarding these 1 Dr. J. F. Fleet, in 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' 1906, pp. 9845. the dates given are quite near enough. The ' Matsya Purana ' alone inserts f *r A . * / i -7 ) t'r" ^^t*. * tit, ifirtta^d. i u; una, luune inseris ces the death or Nirvana of Buddha in the reignsof Kan vSyana nine years and B.C. 482, with other connected dates in j Bhumimitra fourteen years between >rdance with it. For our purpose | Bimbisara and Ajata-ratru.
