Dr. Hamil ton's Description of the Ruins of Buddlia Gay a. 43 



1005 (A.D. 94<8). As Amara and Vikrama are usually considered contem- 

 porary, and as the circumstance is expressly stated in the inscription, it 

 mio-ht be considered as very strange, how an inscription engraved 1005 

 years after the time oi Amara could be considered as a testimony of that per- 

 son having erected the temple ; but Mr. Bentley, in his treatise in the eighth 

 volume of the Asiatic Researches (page 242), has shown that Amara lived 

 long after the commencement of the era of Vikrama, and not far from the 

 time here assigned ; it may therefore be alleged, that the inscription was 

 made by Amara, and that this person built the temple of Mahdmimi. That 

 Amara may have built the present temple is very probable ; but that he 

 could have composed this inscription, appears to me impossible. It men- 

 tions that, in the temple built by Amara, that person placed images of five 

 sons of Pdndu ; but the small building containing tliese is evidently a very 

 recent work, in which some old images of the Buddhas have been placed, 

 and now named after these heroes. Besides if Amara built the great tem- 

 ple, he must have been of the sect of Buddha ; and the story of a Buddha- 

 Avatar is considered by these heretics as altogether void of truth. That 

 Amara was not orthodox, I am told, is clear, from his having omitted, in the 

 beginning of the Amarakusha, to use any sign of a true believer. And that 

 he was of the sect of the Buddhas, I am assured, is proved, by the synonyms 

 which, as I have mentioned above, he gives for a Buddha and for Gautama ; 

 and farther, these synonyms are not compatible with his having been the 

 author of the inscription in question. I have no doubt, therefore, that this 

 inscription is modern, and was composed by some person of the sect of 

 Vishnu, and has been erected to account for the continuance of the worship 

 paid at this place to the pippali tree, which, in compliance with ancient 

 superstition, has been ordered in the Gdya Mahdtmya. I presume that it 

 is on some such authority as this, that certain theorists have imagined the 

 followers of the Buddhas to be a branch of the sect of Vishnu. The in- 

 scription in question has probably been removed by the person who trans- 

 mitted a copy to the Asiatic Researches, as I met with none such. 



The sect of Buddha, as well as the orthodox Hindus, believe that this 

 earth is now in the fourth age of its existence, and that another age will 

 come. Each age has had a lawgiver ; and Gautama's authority, according 

 to the Burmas and Ceylonese, is now established. They therefore com- 

 mence the Kali-ijug, or fourth age, with his appearance ; and the different 

 systems on that subject have occasioned various periods to be assigned for 



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