484 OUDH. there can be little doubt that the Province must have formed one of the earliest seats of Aryan colonization. The burial-place of Muni Agastya, a pioneer of the conquering race, is still pointed out near Colonelganj, a few miles north of the Gogra. At the dawn of history, Oudh appears as a flourishing kingdom, ruled over from Srávasti (SAHET MAHET) by a powerful sovereign. In its capital, Sakya Múni began his labours; and the city long remained a seat of learning for the disciples of the Buddhist faith. Six centuries after the first promulgation of the Buddhist religion, Srávasti contributed two of the great school of doctors who attended at the synod convened by the Scythian conqueror Kanishka in Kashmir. Ptolemy (150 A.D.) apparently divides the central Gangetic basin between the Tanganoi or Ganganoi, whose southern limit was the Gogra, and the Maroundai or Marundæ, whose territories stretch on his map from Central Oudh into the heart of modern Bengal. The first-named people, whose boundaries correspond with the existing Districts of Gonda and Bahraich, seem to have been an aboriginal hill tribe, ethnically connected, perhaps, with the Thárus. The Marundæ were probably a Scythian race, and are known as a trans-Indus people. The information to be derived regarding India from Ptolemy's text and maps, except on the coast-line, can be trusted only when supported by other evidence. The statements in this paragraph are at variance with the opinions of Mr. W. C. Benett, to whose Introduction to the Oudh Gazetteer the following article is otherwise much indebted. The epoch of Ptolemy coincides with the culmination and the downfall of Srávasti, a kingdom which for six centuries or more had maintained a high position among the States of Northern India. Vikramaditya (one of the several but unconnected Vikramadityas in Indian history), the last of its monarchs whose name has come down to later history, defeated Meghávahana, the powerful king of Kashmir, and restored the fanes and holy places of Ajodhya, which had completely fallen into neglect. The trans-Gogra kingdom, hemmed in between the river and the mountains, was cut off towards the south by the dominions of the Maroundai, who had their capital at Patna, and it was to them that Vikramaditya, or one of his successors, finally succumbed. A legend of Ajodhya faintly preserves the memory of a fierce and bloody war, in which the southern dynasty conquered the territories of Srávasti. The surrounding country became a desert. Two hundred and fifty years later, when the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Fa-Hian (cirr. 400 A.D.) visited Srávasti as one of the most famous historical seats of his religion, he found the once populous city still marked by lofty walls, enclosing the ruins of numerous temples, and palaces, but inhabited only by a few destitute monks and devotees (200 households). Hiuen Tsiang made a similar pilgrimage in the 7th century, and found the desolation complete. The approach to the ruined city lay through an all but impassable
