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XVI.—Notes on some of the Buddhist Opinions and Monuments of Asia, compared 
with the Symbols on the Ancient Sculptured “ Standing Stones” of Scotland. 
By Tuomas A. Wise, M.D., F.R.S.E. (With a Plate). 
(Read 2d January 1855.) 
The general identity, in idea and design, of the ancient monuments of Southern 
and Western Europe, with those of Hindostan, is so marked, as to appear to justify 
the inference that races of Asiatics proceeded westward at different ages, and 
established themselves along the shores of the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas, and 
part of the Atlantic Ocean; along which route they have left characteristic monu- 
ments, which resemble those of their original country.* The ancient monuments 
common to these distant regions are— 
1. Cairns and Barrows. These monuments, common to Celtic Europe and 
India, are mounds of earth, or piles of stones. One near Hidrabad, in Central 
India, was surrounded by a circle of stones, which exactly resembled those round 
cairns in Europe. 
2. Cromlechs and Kist-vaens, consisting of two or more upright stones, which, as 
props, support a horizontal block or slab, forming a chamber underneath. Such 
monuments are pretty numerous in wild and retired 1 
places in the peninsula of India(fig. 1), and contain a sar- 
cophagus, with the bones of the dead.} In others, urns 
are found, of red or black pottery, containing the ashes 
of the bodies which had been purified by their passage 
through fire. These monuments were usually paved 
with a large slab, and have a circular hole{ in one of 
the upright slabs which formed the walls, to allow the 
passage of the soul, which was supposed to linger for =< 
a time near the remains of the body after death. These 
cromlechs were in some cases varied in their shape, and 
* These eastern races appear to have proceeded westward by Scythia and Scandinavia, on the 
_ one hand (Worsaaz, Primeval Antiquities of Denmark, edited by Mr Tuoms, p. 132 et seg.); and by 
the shores of the Mediterranean, on the other. Hence, we find the same cromlechs and cinctures of 
pillar-stones on the mountains of Circassia, and the undulating plasms of Tartary (Dewnis’s Etruria, 
vol. ii., p. 321); Asia Minor (Inzy and Manetrs’s Travels, ch. vi. : Colonial Libr. Edit., p.99); Tunis, 
in Africa (Dennis, l. c.); Etruria and Sardinia (Dennis, ibid.) ; ‘the Atlantic shores of Spain (Bor- 
row’s Bible in Spain, ch. vii.) ; of Gaul (Histoire des Peuples Britons, par Covrson); and the 
greater part of the British Islands. 
{ Colonel Mackenziz sometimes found in these cromlechs urns, arms, and even coins. See 
Marra Grauam’s Journal, p. 168. 
t See Letter by Capt. Newsotr, Asiatic Society, 17th July 1846. 
VOL. XXI. PART II. 3Z 
