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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

Buddha Preaching. Discovered at Sarnath, 1904

Carving on the Dhamek Stupa

Excavations below Humayun's Tower, Sarnath, 1905

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

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

A Sannyâsî's Water-Vessel

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

Shivala Ghât

Balcony of Man Singh's Observatory

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"Groups of women . . . are performing puja".

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

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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"

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In the Ahmêty Temple: a Brahmin performing his sandhya

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“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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Γ

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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