________________ 392 Homage to Vaisali that the earliest stupa as well as the second one show clear traces of having been opened. In the earliest stupa, 2 feet below the lowest concrete layer, was discovered a beautiful soap stone casket, three-forths empty and one-forth filled with earth and ashes. Along with the ashes it contains a thin gold leaf, a conch, a glass bead and a copper punch-marked coin. The archaeological and circumstantial evidence thus appears overwhelmingly to prove that the earliest stupa discovered this year is contemporaneous with the Nirvana of the Buddha, and its casket most probably contains part of his relics brought here from Kusinagar. emman AL BERTO
