We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2011
In a letter received on the 1st March last from Major Kittoe, engaged in antiquarian researches under the Bengal Government, he informed me that in excavating the mound constituting the rain of the great Buddhist temple of Sárnáth at Benares, he had turned up some scores of miniature chaityas in baked clay, the base of many of them being impressed with an inscription in the carly Deva Nágarí charecters in a seal form. Some of the chaityas being broken transversely at the base, it was found that an independent seal with an inscription, not in itaglio, but in cameo, was enclosed in the base; and that the seal was first prepared and hardened, and the chaitya then fashioned round it while the clay was plastic, was manifest by the raised letters of the seal having imbedded themselves in the clay, and leaving fac-similes of their forms. Major Kittee readily discovered that the seals or stamps comprised the Buddhist religious dogma, or confession of faith, “Ye dhama,” &e.or “Ye dharma,” &c., as it happened to be in Páli or Sanskrit, and he refers their date from the form of the Deva Nágarí letters to the early part of the eleventh century; but why these chaityas, the first of the kind met with, stamped with the confession of faith or containing a seal with the dogma in relief letters upon it should have been lodged with in the temple, Major Kittoe does not discuss. As the discovery of the chaityas is new in antiquarian research in India, and as there are certain circumstances connected with this confession of faith being met with in different parts of India in mongrel Sanskrit, I have thought that a drawing of a chaitya and of the enclosed seal, together with a few remarks upon the confession of faith, might be acceptable for reference in the Journal of the Society.
page 38 note 1 Journal As. Soc. of Bengal, IV, 131Google Scholar.
page 40 note 1 Historical Researches on the Origin and Principles of the Bauddha and Jaina Religions, by DrBird, James, p. 64Google Scholar.
page 40 note 2 Wilson's Ariana Antiqua, p. 51.
page 42 note 1 Journal of As. Soc. of Bengal, Vol. V., p. 157Google Scholar.
page 44 note 1 Translation:—“All things proceed from some cause; this cause has been declared by the Tathágata; all things will cease to exist; this is what is declared by the Maha Samana [Buddha.]”—Hardy's Manual of Budhism, p. 196.
page 44 note 2 Thus translated:—“Whatever meritorious acts proceed from cause, of those the source Tathagata [Buddha] has declared; the opposing principle of these, the great one of golden origin has also demonstrated.”—Bird's Researches, p. 64.
page 44 note 3 Thus translated:—“The Tathágata [Buddha] has declared the causes which are the origin of moral merit. What is its obstruction, also, the great ascetic has explained.”
page 44 note 4 Journal Bengal As. Soc. vol. IV. p. 211Google Scholar.
page 47 note 1 Hardy's Manual of Budhism, p. 195.
page 48 note 1 P.345, note.
page 49 note 1 Journ. Beng. As. Soc., vol. XVI., p. 78Google Scholar.
page 49 note 2 Ibid. vol. XVIII., p. 247.
page 49 note 3 Ibid. vol. XVII., p. 71.
page 51 note 1 Burnouf, Introd., p. 488.
page 51 note 2 Burnouf, Introd., p. 488.
page 51 note 3 Manual of Budhism, p. 392.
page 51 note 4 Burnouf, Introd., p. 485.
page 51 note 5 Journal Beng. As. Soc. v. 80Google Scholar.
page 51 note 6 Manual, p. 445.
page 52 note 1 Journal Beng. As. Soc, IV, 214Google Scholar.
page 52 note 2 Ib. 211.—This interpretation has been accepted by Csoma de Körös, in his analysis of the Dulva. See Asiatic Researches, vol. xx, p. 52Google Scholar.
page 53 note 1 Journal Beng. As. Soc, IV, 211Google Scholar; Illustrations of Buddhism, pp. 158, 163.
