evil Archeological Survey Report. 
sparkled with the rarest and most precious materials. It was not 
ornamented with rows of niches, neither had it the usual bell-shaped 
cupola, but its summit was crowned with a sort of religious vase, 
turned upside down, on the top of which was an arrow. This is the 
whole of Hwen Thsang’s account of this remarkable building, which, 
although too meagre to gratify curiosity, is still sufficient for the 
purpose of identification. In position it agrees almost exactly with 
that of the great brick mound of Chawkandi which I have just de- 
scribed. The distance of this last from the ruined mound on which 
the village of Barahipur stands, and which I have already identified 
with the position of the Deer Park monastery, is just half a mile 
but the direction is south south-west instead of south-west. With 
regard to size, it is difficult to say what may have been the height of 
the Chaukandi edifice. My excavations have proved that the centre 
of the present mound is all solid brick-work; but the subsequent 
explorations of Major Kittoe have brought to light three immense 
straight walls about midway up the eastern side, and two more on 
the western side, which have all the appearance of gigantic buttresses. 
Now as these walls could not possibly have been required for the 
stability of the great solid mass below, it seems not unreasonable to 
eonclude that they must in some way have been connected with the 
support of the upper portion of the building, which no longer exists. 
Hwen Thsang’s account is somewhat vague, but I believe his intention 
was to describe a dome or cupola narrowed at the base, ike the neck 
of a religious vase reversed. He distinctly states that it was not a 
bell-shaped cupola, that is, the dome did not spread outwards in the 
form familiar to us, in the great Dhagopas of Rangoon and Pegu. 
An excellent illustration of the reversed vase form may be seen in a 
rock cut temple at Ajanta, which is given in Fergusson’s Hand Book 
of Architecture, Vol. I. page 20. 
253. I will conclude this notice of the remains at Sarnath Benares 
with a short account of the excavations which have been made at 
different times during the last seventy years in the vicinity of the 
great tower of Dhamek. 
254. The earliest excavations of which we possess any record were 
those made by Babu Jagat Singh in 1793-94, for the purpose of 
obtaining materials, both stones and bricks, for the erection of a 
market-place, which was named after himself, Jagat ganj. I have 
