68 PROCEEDINGS OP THE ANATOMICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL 



kindly posed for my purpose. They were the only Buddhist ecclesias- 

 tics about the place. 



You will sometimes see, in popular magazines, this Bo-Tree referred to as the 

 identical tree under which the Buddha sat, some centuries before the Christian era. 

 This is pure imagination. We know that the Bo-Tree was several times cut down. On 

 one occasion a hostile Eaja cut it down, dug up the roots, and burnt it with fire. In 

 1880, General Cunningham, digging near the site of the original Vajrasan, " found two 

 large pieces of an old pipal tree," which, for reasons assigned, he conjectured may have 

 been part of this pipal. He, further, was of opinion that fifteen or even twenty trees 

 may have intervened in succession between the original tree and the present one. The 

 tree which immediately preceded this latter had completely decayed and fallen, by the 

 year 1876 ; but, he says, new scions of the parent tree were already in existence to take 

 its place. An authority on the subject says the pipal is a comparatively fast-growing 

 tree ; but, under favourable circumstances, may last for several hundred years. The 

 Bo-Tree at Anuriidhapura, in Ceylon, which was brought as a sapling from the Old 

 Pipal at Bodh-Gaya, in the third century, B.C., is said (Emerson Tennant's Ceylon) to 

 be the oldest, or nearly the oldest, tree in the world historically known. 



Sarnath, we have seen, was the place, known as the Deer Park, 

 where Buddha preached. It was part of the Banares of those days. 

 Now it consists of heaps of mere ruins. One large stupa you pass as 

 you near the spot. Of the two which stood near the monasteries one 

 has fallen ; the other is standing. It is built of brick faced with 

 stone. The spot is visited by pilgrims from Ceylon, Burma and other 

 Buddhist countries. When I was at Banares the Tashi Lama of 

 Tibet arrived there and went out to visit Sarnath. The ruins of the 

 monasteries begin from perhaps a hundred yards from this stupa. It 

 is evident that, during centuries, monastic buildings had decayed and 

 fallen into ruin, and others had been built on the top of those ruins. 

 I noticed that, where recent excavations had been going on, a piece 

 of Buddhistic railing had been exposed. A Lion Pillar, beautifully 

 polished, had recently been dug up. It had, as such pillars usually 

 have, three lions on the top, which had supported, no doubt, the 

 emblem of the Wheel on their shoulders ; and, around the base of the 

 capital, the figures of a horse, an elephant, a bull and a lion, with a 

 Wheel between each figure. 



