________________ Historical Remains at Vaisali ! 369 bankers. Almost every one of the seals, whether official or private, bears one or more symbols or devices besides the inscription. On official seals the design most commonly found is a figure of the goddess Laksmi standing on a full-blown lotus with two elephants pouring water over her. In some cases she is attended by two dwarfish male figures with bellies who might be taken as representations of Kubera, the god of riches. On the seals of the guilds of bankers Kubera is represented holding a curious hemispherical object in his hands or pouring gold coins out of a money bag The seals of private individuals have a variety of devices such as a pair of human feet, a flower pot with conches, a shield, wheel, kalasa, crescent, sankha, svastika, tree etc., or some animal or bird such as a boar (probably representing the Varahavatara), a peacock, bull, borse, lion and the like. A few of the more important of these seals are briefly described belows : (1) 6 seals-4 found by Dr. Bloch (Nos. 63, 89, 101, and 129) and two by Dr. Spooner (Nos. 607 and 651)-bearing representations of the Persian fire-altar. Dr. Bloch's specimens are all inscribed, but the best preserved is No. 101 on which the fire-altar is very distinct and the inscription reads "Ravidasa--the slave of the sun " The inscription on No. 607 of Dr. Spooner's collection reads "Bhagvata Adityasya." The fire-altar is also quite distinct on this specimen. Accordiag to Dr. Spooner these seals exbibit Iranian (Magian) influence and he thinks that seal No. 607 evidently belong to some temple sacred to the divinity "of the Blessed Sun" as worshipped by Indians of Magian descent (perhaps Sakadwipi Brahmans)-for, he argues, if it had been merely a Hindu temple to that luminary, this form of altar would not have occurred. The seals belong to the Early Gupta period. (2) Seal No. 800. The device on this seal is a kalasa with one flower, and two tiny crescents to left and right just above the shoulders of the jar. The legend, which is in 3 lines, is engraved in characters of the Mauryan period and runs as follows: Ve Sa li a nu Ta ka re Sam ya na ka The first and the third lines are in larger letters than is the second. Dr. Spooner therefore reads it: -"Vesali Anusamyanaka Takare" and explains it as : "The Vaisali Patrol, Takara (outposts)". 47
