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It is the boast of the Buddhists that no life was ever sacrificed; that no blood was ever shed; that no suffering was ever caused by the propagation of that faith and the conversion of the world. After he became "enlightened," Gautama assumed the name of Buddha and went to Benares, where he taught and preached, and had a monastery at the town called Sarnath, now extinct, in the suburbs.

I was not sorry when the voyage ended and we returned to the Maharajah's Guest House for a little repose and refreshment, before visiting the early Buddhist stronghold at Sarnath, the "Deer Park," where the Master first preached his doctrine and whither his five attendants sought a haven after they had forsaken him.

Four miles from Benares, at the site of the old Benares, called Sarnath, is a most interesting ancient monument known as the Tope of Sarnath. It is the best preserved of any in Bengal. It was erected in Deer Park to mark the spot sanctified by the presence of Buddha.

A clear proof of the influential position of Benares centuries before the Christian era, is furnished by the fact that Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, deemed it well to commence his public ministry there in the sixth century B.C. The spot where he first unfolded his doctrine was a grove at a place now called Sarnath, about four miles from the present city.

I have found no record of the sack of the monastery at Sarnath but the ruins are said to show traces of fire and other indications that it was overwhelmed by some sudden disaster. The Mohammedans had no special animus against Buddhism. They were iconoclasts who saw merit in the destruction of images and the slaughter of idolaters.

It is true that the King's anxiety as to the hereafter of his subjects and his solicitude for animals indicate thoughts busy with religious ideas, but still his Dhamma is generally defined in terms which do not go beyond morality, kindness and sympathy. In the Sarnath Edict he speaks not only as a Buddhist but as head of the Church.

It is a positive relief to go out of the city, a distance of four miles, to Sarnath, where the great Buddha "The Enlightened One" spent many long years in establishing his faith and in inculcating his "Doctrine of the Wheel." It is a beautiful drive to the birthplace of one of the greatest world faiths. Very little but ruins meets the inquiring gaze of the visitor.

There, surrounded by heaps of ruins and rubbish, stand two great topes or towers, the larger of which marks the spot where Buddha preached his first sermon. It is supposed to have been built in the sixth century of the Chinese era, for Hiouen Thsang, a Chinese traveler who visited Sarnath in the seventh century, describes the tower and monastery which was situated near it.

Kim was guided to the Temple of the Tirthankars, about a mile outside the city, near Sarnath, by a chance-met Punjabi farmer a Kamboh from Jullundur-way who had appealed in vain to every God of his homestead to cure his small son, and was trying Benares as a last resort.

I can imagine that the truest idea of his person is to be obtained not from the abundant effigies which show him as a somewhat sanctimonious ascetic, but from statues of him as a young man, such as that found at Sarnath, which may possibly preserve not indeed the physiognomy of Gotama but the general physique of a young Nepalese prince, with powerful limbs and features and a determined mouth.