66 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANATOMICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL 



moving about from place to place in the districts of India to which 

 allusion has been made, has been given in English by Professor Rhys 

 Davids and others. 



In spite of opposition and internal dissension, the Buddhist 

 system spread after his death ; and not long after that event a council 

 was held, with the assistance of the King of Magadha (Bihar), to 

 settle authoritatively the words of the Master, and a second council, 

 a hundred years later, to deal with questions of heresy which had 

 arisen. By the middle of the third century, B.C., the system had secured 

 for itself an assured position in India, independent of and, in fact, 

 antagonistic to the Brahmanic system. Then was the golden age of 

 Buddhism in India, under Asoka, the grandson of Chandragupta, the 

 contemporary of Alexander the Great and founder of the Moriya, or 

 Peacock, Dynasty. Asoka had inherited from his grandfather the 

 throne of Magadha and more ; he was the emperor of an India as 

 extensive as the modern British India, with his capital at Pataliputra, 

 the modern Patna. 



I was unable to visit the region where Buddha was born, and 

 where he died ; but I had an opportunity of passing two days at 

 Bodh-Gaya and seeing much of what remains of the monuments 

 which piety erected on the spot where he "attained enlightenment". 

 The modern Temple of Maha-bodhi is a restoration, but a restoration 

 on the undoubted lines of the original later temple erected on this 

 spot, and following its original style of decoration. In front of the 

 building is what is known as the Torana Gateway, which was found 

 by General Cunningham lying in pieces near where it had stood, and 

 was pieced together by him and re-erected. The Torana Gateway 

 will be alluded to farther on, in speaking of the Great Stiipa at Sanchi. 



There is no regular worship carried on in this temple ; pious 

 pilgrims who visit it from Burma, Ceylon, on more rare occasions 

 from Japan, Tibet and other Buddhist countries use their own forms 

 of devotion, in their own languages, before the figures of Buddha 

 erected within. 



But this is not the first temple which was erected on this spot, 



