________________ 12 Homage to Vaisali. His most interest ng observation relates to the Great Stupa which was erected at the place where "700 eminent sages made the second compilation." This was the place where the Second Buddhist Council was held. This Stupa was also noticed by Fa-Hien. According to Chinese texts, the place where the Buddhist Council was held was the Balikarama. It must have been distressing to the Chinese Pilgrim to pace over the ruins of a district, which he had known from the Buddhist Scriptures to bave been so much loved by the Buddha, and a centre of prosperity and democracy, ond now converted into a wilderness. Let us recapture some of this lost glory of this city and our National Cultural Heritage by a well-planned scheme of its revival and renovation. We should make a start in our process and programme of reconstruction by a revival of archaeological excavation of its numerous mounds in which are buried its hidden treasures. We should also construct a Museum in which its antiquities may be housed and properly preserved, so that the people may see in it a visible picture of its glorious past. Lastly, we should reconstruct Vaisali, by having here a modernized monastery, a residential public school, where students will grow up in an atmosphere recalling all that is highest and noblest in India's immortal traditional culture. RORY 3800
