JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ASIATIC SOCIETY 



Part I.— HISTORY, LITERATURE, &e. 

 No. III.— 1875 



0)i Traces of Buddhism in Dindjpur and Bagurd (Bogra). — By E. Vesey 

 Westmacott, B. C. S., F. R. G. S., Member of the Bengal Asiatic and 

 Royal Asiatic Societies. 



(With a plate.) 



I cannot tell what may have been the original position of this little pil- 

 lar, which was brought to me from the neighbourhood of Potnitala in Di- 

 najpur. The other three sides are similarly carved to the one which I have 

 drawn, but contain no inscription. From its size I should think that it 

 was a votive offering, set up in a temple or in the court yard of a temple. 

 The Buddhism of the giver is plain, not only from the carving, which re- 

 presents Buddha teaching the law, with hand uplifted, but from the lower of 

 the two inscriptions, which is the well known Buddhist formula, ' ye dharm- 

 ma hetu prabhaba hetu, etc., etc? " Of all things proceeding from cause hath 

 Tathagata explained the causes. The great Sramana hath likewise explained 

 the causes of the cessation of existence." The upper inscription I am not 

 Sanskrit scholar enough to read. It seems to give the name of the person 

 who presented ' this stone made pillar', but to contain no date. The 

 character is in that stage of progress towards modern Bengali, which we find 

 in use in the eleventh century of the Christian era. It is more modern 

 than that of the Amgachhi copperplate, engraved in the reign of Vigraha Pal, 

 and I should fix its date at the period of one of the last of the Pal kings, 

 a dynasty whose Buddhism is well known. The pillar was probably in- 

 tended to represent a Buddhist stupa, and before it was broken, probably 

 bore three umbrellas, one above another. 

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