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The Coronation of Râma and Sîtâ

Site of Deer-Park, excavated 1905

Miniature Votive Shrine, excavated at Sarnath, 1905, showing the sikra crowned by the amâlika ornament

Model of a Nepalese Buddhist Temple

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The Asoka Column, marking the place where Buddha began to preach. Discovered at Sarnath, 1905

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Buddha Preaching. Discovered at Sarnath, 1904

Excavations below Humayun's Tower, Sarnath, 1905

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Carving on the Dhamek Stupa

Shiva, as Natesa. From a bronze in the Madras Museum

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A Village Temple in Bengal

Gâi Ghât-A Classic Group

An old Sacrificial Vessel

An old Benares Brocade

An old Benares Lota

Temple at Dasâsamedh Ghât

"Lighting up the recesses of the cave-like shrines"

A Sannyâsî's Water-Vessel

A Shivaite Rosary

"He will sit like a living Buddha, motionless" The Burning Ghát

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Carved Snakes at Chauki Ghât

A Suttee Stone

"Another venerable hermit, seated on a leopard's skin"

Shivala Chật

Balcony of Man Singh's Observatory

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The Nepalese Temple

The Shrine of Ganga

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Groups of women ... are performing puja”

"Like a painted frieze from Pompeii, or the decoration of an antique

vase "

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"Three old women, who pause to barter with a seller of pots and

pans, unconsciously posing themselves in their classic drapery like the Fates, or the Weird Sisters"

Palhvad Ghât

A Vaishnavite Nun reading the Râmâyana

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In the Ahmêty Temple: a Brahmin performing his sandhya

The Ahmêty Temple.

A Sacrificial Spoon

The Temple at Ramnagar

Mask of Bhaironath

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Ancient Carving, Khandawa Temple

"Thin vaporous clouds of smoke rise from the funeral pyres. The slanting rays of the morning sun cast long shadows across the ghât"

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CHAPTER I

IN THE VEDIC TIMES

History, in the conventional European sense, has never possessed much interest for the Hindu mind. Thoroughly permeated with the idea of the unreality of material things, the Brahmin priesthood, while taking extraordinary precautions to preserve their inheritance of spiritual culture, have never troubled themselves to mark the footprints which kings and dynasties leave upon the sands of time. It is chiefly through the exertions of European scholars, with the help of the old Buddhist records, that the main outlines of Indian history, previous to the Muhammadan invasions, have been made intelligible.

The detailed history of the petty kingdoms into which northern India was divided would probably possess little interest, even if it were sifted out of the wild legends which Eastern imagination has woven into it. Benares will always possess supreme interest as the chief centre of the evolution of two of the great world-religions - Brahminism and Buddhism; but while the development of Buddhism can be, to some extent, traced and mapped out with exact dates and events, the history of Brahminism must always be regarded from a different stand-point.

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