1865.] Notes on Boodh Gya. 279 



in which the said arches occur, or whether they may not have been 

 subsequently inserted. 



Genl. Cunningham, in his excellent Archaeological Report for 1861- 

 62, assigns A. D. 500 as the date of the building of the present tope 

 or temple, and names Amara Sinha as the builder. 



He also works out the same date from a certain inscription once 

 said to have been therein found, and which he holds to be authentic. 



His arguments from the latter source appear to me to have been 

 fully met and set aside by Baboo Rajendralala Mitra in his 

 paper on Boodh G-ya in 1864, which was read before a meeting 

 of the Bengal Asiatic Society, and in which he shews that Sir 

 Charles Wilkin's* inscription, in which the virtues of a shraddh 

 performed here are much extolled — cannot be historically true, and 

 also that the partial silence of Fa Hian, the great Chinese traveller 

 in A. D. 400, does not prove the non-existence of the said tope at that 

 time — the more so as Fa Hian speaks in Chap. XXXI of a great 

 tower having been erected at the place where Foe (Buddha) obtained 

 the law, i. e. under the Bo tree at Boodh G-ya. 



Fergusson (p. 109, Vol. I) states the earliest authentic Hindu 

 building to date A. D. 657, and in allusion to the great tope of Boodh 

 Gya, which it is doubtful whether he ever visited, says to the effect 

 that " the temple of Boodh Gya is certainly Buddhist — was built in 

 the 14th century A. D. — is a square Hindu Vimana and a true 

 ' stupa' as it never possessed any relic." 



Montgomery Martin, in his account of Eastern India, alludes to 

 Asoka as being the reputed founder of the temple, and doubts the 

 authenticity of Amara's inscription, as does also Buchanan Hamilton. 



It will thus be seen that the age of the building and of the arches 

 are both open questions. 



And now, a few words as to the age of Hindu or Boodhist build- 

 ings : — 



Fergusson says — pages 4-5, Introduction. — " It is of more impor- 

 tance to our present purpose that with this king (Asoka) B. C. 250, 

 tin' architectural history of India commences; not one building, nor 

 one sculptured stone having yet been found in the length and 



* That above alluded to, 



