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The Sinhalese Chronicles give the names of the principal missionaries despatched and their statements have received confirmation in the discoveries made at Sanchi and Sonari where urns have been found inscribed with the names of Majjhima, Kassapa, and Gotiputta the successor of Dundhubhissara, who are called teachers of the Himalaya region.
In the neighbourhood of Bhilsa, in Central India, there are a large number of these topes, of which the largest, that of Sanchi, measures 121 ft. in diameter and 55 ft. in height; it was erected by King Asoka. These erections were either detached or cut in the rock, and it is only the rock-cut ones of which remains exist of an earlier date than the commencement of the Christian era.
Whether, like the ancient Assyrians and Egyptians, there was an early civilization which included the arts of joining, carving, and upholstering, we do not know; most probably there was; and from the plaster casts which one sees in our Indian Museum, of the ornamental stone gateways of Sanchi Tope, Bhopal in Central India, it would appear that in the early part of our Christian era, the carvings in wood of their neighbours and co-religionists, the Hindoos, represented figures of men and animals in the woodwork of sacred buildings or palaces; and the marvellous dexterity in manipulating wood, ivory and stone which we recognize in the Chinese of to-day, is inherited from their ancestors.
We lingered long among the marvelous old Buddhistic topes or tumuli of Sanchi, and I interested my companion greatly in describing the mounds of the United States, with which I was familiar, and whose resemblance to these richly-sculptured and variously-ornamented ruins, though rude and far off, was quite enough to set his active fancy to evolving all manner of curious hypotheses going to explain such similarity.
Though he says nothing about it in the Edicts which have been discovered, he erected numerous religious buildings including the Sanchi tope and the original temple at Bodh-Gaya. Their effect in turning men's attention to Buddhism must have been greatly enhanced by the fact that so far as we know no other sect had stone temples at this time. To such influences, we must add the human element.
The contents of it are not quite the same in Ceylon, Burma and Siam, and only a small portion of them has been identified in the Chinese Tripitaka. Nevertheless the word pañcanekâyika, one who knows the five Nikâyas, is found in the inscriptions of Sanchi and five Nikâyas are mentioned in the last books of the Cullavagga. Thus a fifth Nikâya of some kind must have been known fairly early.
Then, when he passed away, he appeared in the Tushita heaven, to enter in due time the womb of Maha-maya, and be born as Sakyamuni. I take the name Sama from Beal's revised version. He says in a note that the Sama Jataka, as well as the Vessantara, is represented in the Sanchi sculptures. But what the Sama Jataka was I do not yet know.
Leaving the Nerbadá we now struck off northward toward the Tonsa, intending to pass round by way of Dumoh, Sangor, Bhilsa and Sanchi to Bhopal.
The whole way, by Sangor, Gharispore, Bhilsa, Sanchi, Sonori, presented us with the most interesting relics of the past, and the frequent recurrence of the works of the once prevalent Buddhistic faith continually incited us to new discussions of the yet unsolved question, Why has Buddha's religion, which once had such entire possession of this people's hearts, so entirely disappeared from the land?
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