TRANSFERENCE OF CITY FROM THE BHIṚ MOUND TO SIRKAP

In the opening years of the second century B.C. the city of Taxila was transferred by the Bactrian Greeks from the Bhiṛ Mound to a new site, now called Sirkap, on the other side of the Tamrā nālā to the north-east; and this new site remained in occupation for three centuries during the successive domination of Greek, Śaka, Parthian and Kushān rulers down to the time of V'ima Kadphises, when the city was again shifted north-east across the Lundi nālā to the site of Sirsukh. But even after the victorious Kushāns had built their new city in Sirsukh, Sirkap must still have continued for some time in partial occupation, just as the Bhiṛ Mound had been partially occupied for some time after the removal of the city to Sirkap.

THE NAME SIRKAP AND THE LEGEND OF RĀSĀLU

The name ‘Sirkap’, like that of ‘Sirsukh’, is widely known in parts of the Panjāb in connexion with the legend of the hero Rāsālu and the seven demon Rākshasas, who fed on human flesh. The Rākshasas were a family of three brothers and four sisters living at Mānikpur west of the Jhelum river, the names of the three brothers being Sirkap, Sirsukh and Amba, and of the four sisters, Kāpi, Kalpi, Munda, and Māndehi. Rāsālu was the son of Sālivāhana and rāja of Siālkot (Śākala). One day, when he went to the city, he found a woman cooking her food and alternately weeping and singing. Surprised, he asked her what it meant. ‘ I sing for joy’, she said, ‘because my only son is to be married today, and I weep for grief because he has been drawn by lot to be a victim of the Rākshasas.’ Rāsālu bade her weep no more because he himself would deal with the Rākshasas. Thereafter he killed all the demons except one, which is said to be still alive in a cavern of Gāndghar, where his bellowings can sometimes be heard. The legend also tells how Rāsālu once played with Sirkap for a human head, but, having won, accepted his daughter Kokilā instead of the stake.