will be taken to heaven; but he says that "the oldest men only that are nearest death in the course of nature do plant them, and none else, the younger sort desiring to live a little longer in this world before they go to the other." The same writer informs us of a ceremony that I do not remember to have met with during my residence in the island. "Under the tree, at some convenient distance, about ten or twelve feet at the outmost edge of the platform they usually build booths or tents; some are made slight, only with leaves, for the present use; but others are built substantial, with hewn timber and clay walls, which stand many years. These buildings are divided into small tenements for each particular family. The whole town joins, and each man builds his own apartment, so that the building goes quite round, like a circle; only one gap is left, which is to pass through the bó-tree, and this gap is built over with a kind of portal. The use of these buildings is for the entertainment of the women, who take great delight to come and see these ceremonies, clad in their richest and best apparel. They employ themselves in seeing the dancers, and the jugglers do their tricks, who afterwards by their importunity get money from them, or a ring off their fingers, or some such matter. Here also they spend their time in eating betle, and in talking with their consorts, and showing their fine clothes. These solemnities are always in the night; the booths all set round with lamps; nor are they ended in one night, but last three or four, until the full moon, which always puts a period to them."* As the bó-tree (ficus religiosa) is dedicated to Gótama Budha, so the banian (ficus Indica) was dedicated to his predecessor, and other Budhas had also their appropriate tree. The next Budha, Maitrí, will have the ná, iron-wood tree. In the inscription upon the lát of Feroz Sháh, near Delhi (with which the inscriptions at Allahabad, Mattiah, and Radhia substantially agree) no mention is made of any kind of worship besides that which is paid to the bó-tree. These pillars were erected by Asóka, who flourished in the 218th year of the Budhist era. These ancient records make it the more probable that image-worship is of more recent introduction. "It is tolerably certain," says Mr. Fergusson, "that the adoration of images, and particularly of that of the founder of the religion, was the introduction of a later and Knox's Account of his Captivity in Ceylon. more corrupt era, and unknown to the immediate followers of the deified." Few species of idolatry have been more common than arborolatry. It has been said that, among the Greeks and Romans, nearly every deity had some particular tree; and that nearly every tree was dedicated to some particular god. It was under the oak that the Druids performed their most sacred rites, and the principal tree of the grove was consecrated with ceremonies of a description peculiarly solemn. The ancient inhabitants of Canaan appear to have been greatly attached to the sacred groves in which they were accustomed to worship; and the Israelites were especially commanded to destroy them. Perhaps the solemn gloom they produced would have overpowered the minds of the Hebrews, and have led them to admire and venerate, and then partake in the idolatry; or they might be used for abominations that the people of God were to flee from as from the pestilence. Yet these gardens and groves were a snare to them, and drew them away from the service of the sanctuary. "When I had brought them into the land Which I swore that I would give unto them, Then they saw every high hill and every thick tree; And there they slew their victims; And there they presented the provocation of their offerings; And there they poured out their libations.”—Ezek. xx. 28. "On the tops of the mountains they sacrifice, And on the hills they burn incense; Under the oak and the poplar, And the ilex, because her shade is pleasant."-Hos. iv. 13. It was declared by Gótama Budha to Ananda, in the legend inserted above, that the objects proper to be worshipped are of three kinds :-1. Serírika. 2. Uddésika. 3. Paribhógika. The first class includes the relics of his body, which were collected after his cremation. The second includes those things that have been erected on his account, or for his sake, which, the commentators say, means the images of his person. And the third includes the articles he possessed, such as his girdle, his alms-bowl, the robe he put on when he bathed, the vessel from which he drank water, and his seat or throne. There is another threefold division of the same objects. 1. Paribhógika. 2. Dhátu. 3. Dharmma. The second includes the same things as the first division of the preceding series ; and the third refers to the doctrines that Budha taught, the bana, or the sacred books. All these are called chaityas, on account of the satisfaction or pleasure they produce in the mind of those by whom they are properly regarded. In nearly every place where there are evidences of Budhistical worship, the dágoba is to be seen; in some instances rising to an elevation that has only one parallel among the works of man. The name is derived from dá, dátu, or dhátu, an osseous relic, and geba, or garbha, the womb. The word tope is not unfrequently used in the same sense, from thúpa, a relic. "A tope," says Professor Wilson, "is, or has been, a circular building of stone, or brick faced with stone or stucco, erected on a platform, which has been built upon either a natural or artificial elevation. It is distinguished, according to Mr. Masson, from a tumulus, by having a distinct cylindrical body interposed between a circular basement and a hemispherical cupula. This is, no doubt, the case at Sarnath, and in most of the topes of Afghanistan. In the great tope of Manikyala, however, the perpendicular part between the basement and dome scarcely constituted a perceptible division. At Bhilsa, Amaravati, and still more in Ceylon, time, vegetation, and decay have effaced these distinctions, and the tope occurs as a mound rising conically from an irregularly circular base. Steps usually lead up to the basement of the building or the platform on which it stands. It seems not unlikely that the cupola was crowned by a spire. Such embellishments usually terminate temples in Buddhist countries, to which these topes are considered analogous, as well as the dahgopas, which present other analogies. They are also found upon what may be considered miniature representations of the topes which have been discovered within them; and the Ceylon topes have evidently been thus terminated. Traces of spires are visible on the summits of the great mounds of Abhayagiri and Jaitawana. The dimensions of the topes vary considerably. Many of those in Afghanistan are small, and the largest are not of great size: the circumference of few of them at the base exceeds 150 feet, and their elevation apparently does not often reach 60 feet. . . . Many of the topes have yielded no return to the labour expended upon opening them; others have been rich in relics. It is a curious circumstance, noticed by Mr. Masson, that where these substances which appear to be the remains of a funeral pile, as ashes and animal exuviæ, most abound, the relics of antiquity are least abundant. The most conspicuous objects are, in general, vessels of stone or metal; they are of various shapes and sizes; some of them have been fabricated on a lathe. They commonly contain a silver box or casket, and within that, or sometimes by itself, a casket of gold. This is sometimes curiously wrought. One found by Mr. Masson at Deh Bimaran is chased with a double series of four figures, representing Gautama in the act of preaching; a mendicant is on his right, a lay-follower on his left, and behind the latter a female disciple; they stand under arched niches resting on pillars, and between the arches is a bird; a row of rubies is set round the upper and lower edge of the vessel, and the bottom is also chased with the leaves of the lotus: the vase had no cover. Within these vessels, or sometimes in the cell in which they are placed, are found small pearls, gold buttons, gold ornaments and rings, beads, pieces of white and coloured glass and crystal, pieces of clay or stone with impressions of figures, bits of bone, and teeth of animals of the ass and goat species, pieces of cloth, and folds of the Tuz or Bhurj leaf, or rather the bark of a kind of birch on which the Hindus formerly wrote; and these pieces bear sometimes characters which may be termed Bactrian; but they are in too fragile and decayed a state to admit of being unfolded or read. Similar characters are also found superficially scratched upon the stone, or dotted upon the metal vessels. In one instance they were found traced upon the stone with ink. Within some of the vessels was also found a liquid, which upon exposure rapidly evaporated, leaving a brown sediment, which was analysed by Mr. Prinsep, and offered some traces of animal and vegetable matters.” * The dágoba of Sarnath, near Benares, is a solid mass of masonry, from forty to fifty feet in diameter, originally shaped like a beehive, the upper part having crumbled down. It is cased externally with large blocks of stone, well fitted and polished, and has a broad belt of ornamental carving near the base, which represents a wreath. The Shwadagon pagoda at Rangoon stands on the summit of an eminence, and is 338 feet high. In shape it is said to resemble an inverted speaking trumpet, and it is surmounted by a tee of brass, richly gilded, forty-five feet high. Its circumference at the base is 1355 feet. It is the most ancient monument in the country, more than 2500 years having elapsed since its foundation was laid. It is * Wilson's Ariana Antiqua. said that underneath it are relics of the four last Budhas; viz. the staff of Kakusanda, the water-dipper of Kónágama, the bathing garment of Kasyapa, and eight hairs from the head of Gótama.* The height of the Budhistical monument at Manikyala, in the Punjab, from the summit of the artificial mound upon which it is situated, to the summit of the structure itself, is said by Elphinstone to be about 70 feet, and the circumference is 150 paces. According to the same author, some broad steps, now mostly ruined, lead to the base of the pile round the base to a moulding on which are pilasters about four feet high and six feet asunder; these have plain capitals, with parallel lines and beadings. The whole of this may be seven or eight feet high, from the uppermost step to the top of the cornice. The building then retires, leaving a ledge of a foot or two broad, from which rises a perpendicular wall about six feet high; about a foot above the ledge is a fillet, formed by stones projecting a very little way from the wall, and at the top of the wall is a more projecting cornice." Above this complex basement, which may be taken to be from sixteen to twenty feet high, rises a dome approaching in shape to a hemisphere, but truncated and flat near the summit. The greater part of the outside is cased with stones about three feet and a-half long, cut smooth, and so placed that the ends only are exposed. In 1830, General Ventura, in the service of Runjit Sing, sank a perpendicular shaft in the centre of the platform on the summit, and at various depths found repositories, one below another, at intervals of several feet. These contained coins of gold, silver, and copper, boxes and vessels of iron, brass, copper, and gold. The copper coins were considered to be some of those struck by the Indo-Scythian kings, Kadphises or Kanerkes, who are thought to have reigned about the latter part of the first and the commencement of the second century. There are fifteen other dágobas in the same neighbourhood, one of which was opened by Court, another officer in the service of Runjit Sing, and was found to contain a coin of Julius Caesar, one of Mark Antony, and none of a much later date.f The Nepaulese have a work entitled Dwavinsati Avadán, which contains an account of the fruits of building, worshipping, and circumambulating the dágoba. At the base of the structure are placed images of the Dhyani Budhas. * Asiatic Researches, vol. xvi. + Thornton's Gazetteer, art. Manikyala. |