48. Notes on a Buddhist Inscription from Hasra Kol, 
aya. 
By Artuur VEnis. 
The materials for this short notice I owe to the great kind. 
ness of A. W. Keith, Esq., of Gaya. During last winter, when 
opening one of the many mounds still to be seen in the tiny 
valley of Hasra Kol, 14 miles east of Gaya, Mr. Keith came on 
the circular slab with the inscription now reproduced. The slab 
of hornblende rock, 2’ 2” diameter, was found in the centre of the 
mound and 4’ below the surface: it was horizontally laid in clay 
on what would seem to have been the floor of a building. Below 
it was a shaft 9’ square and 10’ deep, coated with 1” lime-plaster 
compactly filled with earth, and resting on a bed of rock, Exca- 
vation of this shaft yielded nothing. 
ur inscription is a dharani or magic litany for the protec- 
tion of a building or enclosure of some kind which belonged to a 
monk named Vipulakaramati. Lines 11—19 contain the prayers, 
which begin with an invocation to the Rsis and to the Usnisa and 
white parasol of all the Tathagatas, and continue with the magic 
syllables him, brim and the rest so combined as to hinder or 
d 
1 
= identity with the ‘deity (in this case, the Buddha) whom he 
nvokes. There cannot be much doubt as to the symbolism of 
some of the objects drawn within the circle, viz., the Vajra and 
andra, or white disc of the rete and the syllable him 
siiicetbedd within the litter, But what is to be said of the human 
e on the right and on the left of the Vajra? Mahamaho- 
padhyaya Haraprasida “astri very kindly supplies a stl 
is U kaucalya or the Means of Salvation and that on the left 
is eee ics or _Transcendental know Whether 
the rude drawings are in themselves decisive is a question for 
those who know. I would merely recall attention to our text 
