J987.1 Note on tivo terra-cotta Buddhist medals. 123 



" I have sent you by parcel post a box containing (1) the pieces of 

 a terra-cotta circular medal, so to speak, bearing a beautiful impression 

 of a seated Buddha under a chaitya, with an armed (?) attendant 

 standing on either side, and with small flying figures playing round the 

 apex of the ' htee ' of the chaitya. Underneath is a tolerably plain 

 inscription, and below the inscription a strange little figure in an atti- 

 tude of servility (or worship ?) before an object which I cannot make 

 out. On the reverse is what I take to be meant for the Bo tree. 



" May I beg of you to be so good as to decipher the inscription for 

 me and tell me the probable, or perhaps exact, age of the medal. I 

 would put it in about the 8th or 9th century A. D. 



" I also put in the box (2) a perfect specimen of a smaller and less 

 beautiful medal, also with an inscription. May I request you to favour 

 me with a reading of it also. These, with many hundreds of small 

 terra-cotta moulded plaques of Buddha seated, measuring 3 inches by If 

 in., all identical, were found by me recently in a mound. On receiving 

 translations from you, I shall send you a paper on the mound and its 

 opening and hope to be permitted by Government to send for the 

 Society's Museum specimens of the articles found in it. I am under an 

 obligation to send them to the rT.-W. P. and Ondh Museum at 

 Lucknow • but have no doubt that, as they are so numerous, I shall 

 obtain permission to send some to your Society." 



Dr. Hoernle remarked : The medals are correctedly described in Mr. 

 Markham's note. Representations similar to that on the larger medal 

 may be seen on the Barhut stones in the Indian Museum (see General 

 Cunningham's Stiipa of Bharut, PI. XIII, XXXI et passim). The flying 

 figures are human, and bear garlands. The attendants carry chaurls 

 in their right hands. The objects in their left hands are not distinct ; 

 that in the hand of the right-hand figure seems to be a long bow. The 

 left-hand figure wears a necklet. Both are clothed in dhotis only. 

 Their head-dresses slightly differ. Their heads appear to be encircled by 

 a halo. Buddha, on the chaitya, is represented seated, in the attitude 

 of meditation. The figure below the inscription would seem to be a 

 woman, to judge from the head dress. The object before which she 

 kneels is perhaps a pan on a woodfire, which she is represented as blow- 

 ing. The inscription is merely the well-known Buddhist creed, which 

 runs as follows : 



M (^ sfr f*rtn* v) sfaTf^ *ti ws [:] 



%. e. * All things that proceed from a cause, their cause the Tatha- 

 gata has declared as well as what is their destruction. Such is the die- 



