An old man who was in charge of the ruins when we examined them, lighted a candle, and took us into the horizontal tunnel-like gallery which the General had excavated some years before, in the hope that relics or memorials of some kind might be found buried in the interior. A shaft or well had been previously sunk from the summit, and at the depth of 10½ feet a slab was discovered, inscribed with the well-known Buddhist formula ‘Ye dharmā,’ etc. (p. 104); but the search for relics proved unsuccessful. The Stūpa, in fact, turned out to be merely memorial, like that at Buddha-Gayā. Probably some monumental Stūpa existed here from the earliest times, and certainly from Aṡoka’s time. The present Stūpa was seen by Hiouen Thsang, who has described it in rather a confused manner (Beal, ii. 45). Hence it must be as old as about the ninth century. Fā-hien saw a Stūpa of some kind there in the fifth century (p. 387). About fifty yards from the Stūpa, Sir A. Cunningham found the interesting sculpture given at p. 477. _Rāja-gṛiha._ Rāja-gṛiha (Pāli, Rāja-gaha) is the modern Rāj-gīr. The old city had the epithet Giri-vraja, ‘surrounded by hills[201].’ It was the first metropolis or mother-city of Buddhism, and the original capital of the powerful kingdom of Magadha, when under the rule of the Kings Bimbi-sāra (p. 48) and his son Ajāta-ṡatru, who were contemporaries and friends of Gautama, and converted by him to Buddhism[202]. The sacred character of the place is attested by the ruins of vast numbers of Buddhist Stūpas and Vihāras which once existed here. Unhappily Brāhmans and Musalmāns have used the materials for their temples, tombs, and mosques. It was here that Gautama first studied under the Brāhmans Āḷāra and Uddaka (p. 29), and here he first imbibed the philosophical ideas which afterwards coloured his teaching. It is not surprising, therefore, that at a later period of his career he was fond of returning to Rāja-gṛiha for retirement during Vassa; his two favourite resorts[203] being the Bambu grove (Veḷu-vana, p. 48) and the hill called Vulture-peak (Gṛidhra-kūṭa, Legge’s Fā-hien, 81, 83), both in the neighbourhood of the city.