Note 43 — CHAPTER 19

Palitana, or ‘the abode of the Pali’ [?], is the name of the town at the foot of the sacred mount Satrunjaya (signifying ‘victorious over the foe’), on which the Jain temples are sacred to Buddhiswara, or the ‘Lord of the Buddhists’ [?]. I have little doubt that the name of Palitana is derived from the pastoral (pali) Scythic invaders bringing the Buddhist faith in their train—a faith which appears to me not indigenous to India [?]. Palestine, which, with the whole of Syria and Egypt, was ruled by the Hyksos or Shepherd kings, who for a season expelled the old Coptic race, may have had a similar import to the Palitana founded by the Indo-Scythic Pali. The Author visited all these sacred mounts. [The Author describes Pālitāna in WI, 274 ff.; see also BG, viii. 603 f. All this confusion between Buddhists and Jains and the suggested derivation, in which the Author unfortunately relied on Wilford (Asiatic Researches, iii. 72 ff., viii. 321), are out of date.]