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300
BUDDHIST INDIA.
inside of the urn is the legend : “Of the good man, Majjhima." In another Tope close by at Souāri two urns bear the separate inscriptions: “Of the good man, Kassapa-gotta, son of Koti,' teacher of all the Himālaya region," and : “ Of the good man Majjhima, the son of Kodini." ? In the saine Tope was a third urn with the inscription : “Of the good man Gotiputta, of the Himālaya, successor of Dun. dubhissara." :
Many of the Topes had been opened, in search of treasure, and the urns in them ruthlessly destroyed, before the archæologists examined them; so the evidence is incomplete. Even as it stands the evid. ence of the old characters on those preserved to us will be estimated in different ways by different minds. With these, and similar facts before them, some still consider the literature as a tissue of mendacious fictions; others still consider that the Buddha is only a sun myth, and his disciples merely stars. I must humbly confess myself unable to follow speculations so bold. The Ceylon scholars knew, of course, nothing of these long-buried in. scriptions ; and could not have read or understood them, even had they had access to them. What we have to explain is how they came, centuries afterwards, to record precisely the same names in precisely the same connection. It is only the wildest
i Cunningham's Bhilsa Topes, pp. 287, 316. ? This is his mother's, not his father's, name.
* The rare and curious form“Dundubhissara" is a nickname, and may be rendered “Trumpet-voiced,” though the dundubhi is not a trumpet.
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
