Excerpt from The Prabandhacintamani: Or Wishing-Stone of Narratives The story of the founding of Anahillapura or Anhilwad, belongs to a class of legends, which might appropriately be termed the city foundation cycle. The animal, with which the foundation of this city is connected by our author, is a hare. One is irresistibly reminded of the legend of Aeneas. I quote from Arnold's history of Rome, Vol. I. P. 2, The Trojans, when they had brought their gods on shore, began to sacrifice. But the victim, a milk-white sow, just ready to farrow, broke from the priests and their ministers, and fled away. Aeneas followed her, for an oracle had told him that a four-footed beast should guide him to the spot where he was to build his city. It is unnecessary to pursue the story further, but we should, perhaps, be justified in comparing the Jali-tree with the Ficus Ruminalis.1 In the same way Cadmus was commanded by the oracle at Delphi to follow a cow of a certain kind, and to build a city on the spot where the cow should sink down from fatigue.a Athens also had its horse and its olive, not to mention the owl. Perhaps the wolf, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome, belongs to the same cycle. So the first beginnings of the new city, founded with Jain mantras, as the pious chronicler tells us, may, after all, be more closely connected with the wor ship of trees and animals than with the formulas of Mahavira. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.