THE BHILSA TOPES; OR, BUDDHIST MONUMENTS OF CENTRAL INDIA : COMPRISING A BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND DECLINE OF BUDDHISM; WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE OPENING AND EXAMINATION OF THE VARIOUS GROUPS OF TOPES SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. BOMBAY SMITH, TAYLOR AND CO. 1854. The Author of this work reserves to himself the right of authorizing a translation of it.] PREFACE. 1. THE discoveries made by Lieutenant Maisey and myself, amongst the numerous Buddhist monuments that still exist around Bhilsa, in Central India, are described - imperfectly, I fear-by myself in the present work. To the Indian antiquary and historian, these discoveries will be, I am willing to think, of very high importance; while to the mere English reader they may not be uninteresting, as the massive mounds are surrounded by mysterious circles of stone pillars, recalling attention at every turn to the early earthworks, or barrows, and the Druidical colonnades of Britain. In the Buddhistical worship of trees displayed in the Sánchi bas-reliefs, others, I hope, will see (as well as myself) the counterpart of the Druidical and adopted English reverence for the Oak. In the horse-shoe temples of Ajanta and Sánchi many will recognise the form of the inner colonnade at Stonehenge. More, I suspect, will learn that there are Cromlechs in India as well as in Britain;† that the Brahmans, Buddhists, and Druids all believed in the transmigration of the soul; that the Celtic language * Plate II. figs. 1, 2, and 3. † Plate II. figs. 4 and 5. a was undoubtedly derived from the Sanscrit;* and that Buddha (or Wisdom), the Supreme Being worshipped by the Buddhists, is probably (most probably) the same as the great god Buddwás, considered by the Welsh as the dispenser of good. These coincidences are too numerous and too striking to be accidental. Indeed, the Eastern origin of the Druids was suspected by the younger Pliny,† who says, "Even to this day Britain celebrates the magic rites with so many similar ceremonies, that one might suppose they had been taken from the Persians." The same coincidence is even more distinctly stated by Dionysius Periegesis, who says that the women of the British Amnitæ celebrated the rites of Dionysos, v. 375 :As the Bistonians on Apsinthus banks Shout to the clamorous Eiraphiātes, Or, as the Indians on dark-rolling Ganges Hold revels to Dionysos the noisy So do the British women shout Evoë! 2. I have confined my observations chiefly to the religious belief taught by Sákya Muni, the last mortal Buddha, who died 543 B.C. There was, however, a more ancient Buddhism, which prevailed not only in India, but in all the countries * The name of Druid may be taken as an example: Greek, Spus; Sanskrit, द्रु dru; Welsh, derw; Erse, dair: a tree, or oak tree. + Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxx. 1,-" Britannia hodie eam (magiam) attonite celebrat tantis ceremoniis, ut eam Persis dedisse videri possit." |