Thus, with regard to Patna, we are led to the conclusion, that, while there is great evidence to prove that it is a most ancient city, and to identify it with the former Pataliputra, the capital of the Gupta dynasty; yet it is quite as clear that it is not the site of Palibothra.
Another opinion, however, would place the ancient city further east, and not far from Bhaugulpore.[85] The late Colonel Francklin took a journey on purpose to examine this subject, and in his preface to the second part of his researches respecting the site of Palibothra, he writes:—"If then my assumption of the Mandara hill as the place recorded in the Puranas,[86] where one of the sovereigns of Palibothra was assassinated, be correct;—if the evidence afforded by the hills which appear in the neighbourhood of the town, and through a very great extent of what formerly constituted the Prasian kingdom, prior to the expedition of Alexander the Great;—if these and other connecting circumstances, as well local and historical, as traditional, be conceded;—it will, I think, be also conceded to me, that they apply in every instance throughout the discussion, as more naturally indicative of the town of Bhaugulpore possessing the site of Palibothra, and the metropolis of the Parsii (Prasii?) than either Rajmahal, Patna, Kanoge, or Allahabad."
The argument drawn from the assassination of this king of Palibothra on the Mandara hill, is really worth nothing. The circumstance that this took place near Bhaugulpore no more proves the site of Palibothra to have been there, than if the sovereign had been assassinated at any other of the places named. For if kings travel, particularly among enemies, and in times of anarchy, they are liable to be killed anywhere. Our first Richard was assassinated in Normandy, and our first Edward had a narrow escape in the Holy Land. Moreover, this murdered king of Palibothra might have been taken to the Mandara hill as a fitting place of execution; so that we can gather from this occurrence no clue whatever, to the actual site of his capital city.
Again, there is no large river flowing into the Ganges at the point where Bhaugulpore is situated. Colonel Francklin states that at Dhurumgunge, five miles N.W. of Bhaugulpore he met with the river Chundun, but the confluence of the Chundun with the Ganges is at Champanuggur, thirteen miles from that town. He assumes this river to have been the Erannoboas of the Greeks; and, because it is to be found thirteen miles from Bhaugulpore and runs into the Ganges, he fixes the Mandara hill as the site of Palibothra. At the end of his journal, he adds, that, "in the words of Arrian, the Erannoboas was a river of the third magnitude among the rivers in India." But here the Colonel mistakes the meaning of his author; for Arrian says, not that it was a river of the third magnitude, but the third river throughout all India. It is thus that historical authority is sometimes falsely cited. The Chundun, even near its mouth, is only seven hundred yards in breadth, and this will not constitute a third-rate river in India. The Gograh, on the left bank, is in some places a mile broad, in many places half-a-mile, and of greater depth even than the Ganges. The Chundun is so inconsiderable, that we hear of no natives, except those of Bhaugulpore, who speak of it at all; and to identify this with a river said to be next in size to the Indus, is plainly absurd.
In a subsequent tour, the Colonel again visited Bhaugulpore, and about four miles south-east of that town, he found a commanding eminence, being 600 yards in circumference, and on which the site of bastions and the outer ditch of a fortification are plainly to be discovered. "The place," he says,[87] "is called by the natives Suffiegur; and here the surface of the ground in the front, as well as the neighbouring grove of mango trees, is overspread with a variety of stones of different kinds, cornelians, agates, flints, and specimens of beautiful veined stone, pieces of crystal and slabs of chalcedony; these evidently indicating the remains of a building of a superior order, at a remote period of time."
The Colonel again remarks—"In my humble opinion, I should assign it as one of the summer palaces of the sovereigns of Palibothra." But since, in that country, ruins are so numerous, and frequently of such a splendid character, we cannot allow this circumstance to be of any weight. Any other hill containing a few stones, and a few relics of ancient fortifications, might, as far as Colonel Francklin has given proof, have been the summer residence of the kings of Palibothra. There are two very singular round towers near the town of Bhaugulpore, in the direction indicated by the Colonel, which he may possibly have mistaken for the summer palace of the king.
We cannot suppose that if Bhaugulpore had been the ancient Palibothra, it would not have been revered as a sacred spot, even though it were in ruins. Kanoge, for example, although no longer in existence, is spoken of with veneration. But it does not appear that any particular sanctity is attached by the natives to Bhaugulpore, nor that they esteem it as more than a common city. And, if it had been what Colonel Francklin claims for it, it would, of course, have been the capital of the Prasii. But we have no evidence whatever that the kingdom of the Prasii extended so far south; and supposing that it did, still it is most improbable that their chief city would be placed at the extremity of their dominions. If the Colonel's opinion were correct, would not Abul Fazel, who wrote in 1582, or some Hindoo writer of prior or subsequent date, have spoken of such a place? Would there not be a pilgrimage to it, as there is now to Allahabad, and other sacred places? Without doubt, such would have been the case; and therefore, taking all these things into consideration, it appears to me that we must reject Colonel Francklin's favourite theory, and that Bhaugulpore could not have been Palibothra.
Another opinion places the site of the lost city at Benares. This is no doubt also an ancient town; it was taken by the Sultan Mahmood of Ghuznee in A.D. 1017, and a mosque with two elegant minarets existing to this day, was built there by Aurungzebe to mortify the Hindoos. The river Birnah runs between the military cantonments and the civil station, across which a small stone bridge was thrown, about fifty years ago, by the late Major-General J. Garstin. This river is situated to the left of the city, where it enters the Ganges. It is a very narrow and inconsiderable stream, and could not bring Benares within the denomination of "a city with two large rivers;" so that we may dismiss this opinion also, as quite improbable.
Rajmahal has likewise been mentioned, as the place where the ancient city stood. But this is at a considerable distance below Patna, and it is not likely that the limits of the Prasii extended so far in this direction. A hundred years ago, Rajmahal was two or three miles inland; and though, by the encroachment of the current upon the land, it is now situated on the bank of the river, yet there is no other river near it, it does not stand at the confluence of any stream with the Ganges, and therefore does not answer to Arrian's description.