temple, and the erection of an image of Buddha, to the illustrious Amara Deva, who is stated to have been one of the nine gems of the court of King Vikramaditya. The last fact serves at once to identify Amara Deva with Amara Sinha, the author of the Amara Kosha, who, as a contemporary of Varáha Mihira and Kálidás, must have lived in A. D. 500. In this inscription the temple is said to have been erected in compliance with the command of Buddha himself, conveyed to him in a vision. Here then we have the same story that is found in Hwen Thsang. In both statements, a Brahman in a vision receives command from a deity to build a temple with an enshrined figure of a god. The correspondence is complete, excepting only one curious point of difference in the name of the god, whom the Buddhist Hwen Thsang describes as the Brahmanical Mahâdeva, but whom the Brahmanist recorder of the inscription calls Buddha himself. The holy places at Buddha-Gaya were visited between A. D. 399 and 414 by another Chinese pilgrim Fa-Hian, but his account of them is unfortunately very brief. It is, however, sufficient to show that there was no temple in existence at that date. Fa-Hian notes the spot where Buddha, seated on a stone under a great tree, eat some rice presented to him by two maidens. The stone still existed, and is described by him as about 6 feet in length and breadth, and 2 feet in height.* Now, there is a large circular stone, 5 feet 7 inches in diameter and about 2 feet high, in the small temple of Vageswari Devi, which from its dimensions would seem to be the identical stone described by Fa-Hian. It is a blue stone streaked with whitish veins, and the surface is covered with concentric circles of various minute ornaments. The second circle is composed of Vajras only. The third is a wavy scroll, filled with figures of men and animals. These circles occupy a breadth of 15 inches, leaving in the centre a plain circle, 3 feet 1 inches in diameter, inside which is a square. This simple stone I believe to be the same as that mentioned by Hwen Thsang as a blue stone with remarkable veins.† From all the facts which I have brought forward, such as the non-existence of any temple in A. D. 400, the recorded erection of a large one by Amara Deva about A. D. 500, and *Beal's Fa-Hian, c. XXXI. Julien's Hwen Thsang, II., 471. |