________________
290
BUDDHIST WDLL
been so often changed, and added to, that only a few fragments of railing, and probably the very reinarkable sinhīsana, or throne, remain of the work done in his time. The present building has been restored, as a national monument, by order of the English Government. It has straight sides, quite different in outline from the ancient form as shown in the illustration of the Sānchi Tope. This is due to a difference of ideal. The ancient tope was an enlarged and glorified circular burial mound. The later ones imitate an ordinary dwelling-hut, the outline of which was determined by the natural bend of two bamboos, planted apart in the ground, and drawn together at the top. This shape is characteristic of all the mediæval temples in India, and an illustration of the Hindu temple at Khujarao is annexed (Fig 49), as one of the best examples of this style. But to return to Asoka's own doings.
The Edicts hitherto discovered are thirty-four in number. We know of others seen in the seventh century, and we know, approximately, the sites on which they were seen,-such, for instance, as those at Săvatthi and Rāmagāma,—and there must be others besides. Further discoveries, therefore, may be confidently anticipated. Of those now known two are merely commemorative proclamations recording visits paid by Asoka - one to the stūpa erected over the funeral urn of Konāgamana the Buddha, and one to the birthplace of Gotama the Buddha. Three others are merely short dedications of certain caves to the use of the Ājīvakas, a body
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
