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२१२ : महावीर निर्वाणभूमि पावा : एक विमर्श
P. 75
the building would almost certainly have been a stupa; for we know that the people of Pāwā, after the cremation of Buddha's body, obtained one-eighth of the relics, over which they erected a stupa. The entrance to the court-yard would appear to have been on the east side, where the mound is now low and thickly covered with bricks.
In a small roofless brick building at a short distance to the northward, there are a few old figures. This temple is dedicated to Hathi Bhawāni, or the Elephant Goddess, who is accordingly propitiated with rude votive figures of elephants in baked clay, of which numbers lie scattered about the temple, both inside and outside. The statue called Hathi Bhawāni represents a squatted male figure with a triple umbrella over his head. The figure appears to be naked, and if so, it must belong to the Jains, and not to the Buddhists. A drawing of it is given by Buchanan. There are also two fragments with seated Buddhas, and a third with the upper half of a female figure. On referring to Buchanan I recognized all three fragments as having belonged to the statue sketched as fig. 2 in his Plate. The principle figure is now gone, but there are a few unimportant fragments not noticed by Buchanan, and in the village there is the pedestal of a
statue
I made an excavation on the highest part of the mound on the west side, and to the northward of the zemindar's excavation. In this I found bricks with rounded edges such as I had noticed in the mouldings of the Great Temple at Buddha-Gya, and of the stupa at Giryek. I found also wedge-shaped bricks of two sizes. The largest ones being only fragments, I was unable to ascertain their length, but their breadth was 20 at the end, and 19 inches at 6 inches
Eastern India, II., Plate I., Fig. 2.
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