1864.] On the Buddhist Remains of Sult&nganj. 369 



43. A number of bivalve shells. 



44. Lamps of stone, similar in shape to No. 29. 



The articles named above leave no doubt as to the nature of the 

 building in which they have been found. The quadrangle was evi- 

 dently a large Buddhist monastery or Vihara, such as at one time 

 existed at Sarnath, Sanchi, Buddhagaya, Manikyala and other places 

 of note, and at its lour corners had four chapels for the use of the 

 resident monks. Two of these which abutted on the mart have alrea- 

 dy disappeared, and of the other two, that on the south-west has 

 yielded the relics noted above, and the last remains under the railway 

 bungalow, a most promising field for the antiquary who could devote 

 a week or two to its exploration. 



Of the history of this Vihara nothing is now traceable. From its 

 extent and the style of its construction, it is evident that at one time 

 it was a place of great repute, and the resort of innumerable pilgrims. 

 But its glory set a long while ago, and even the name of the place 

 where it stood is now lost in obscurity. The present appellation 

 (Sultanganj) is quite modern, not more than two or three centuries 

 old, and is due to a prince of the house of Akbar. Fa Hian makes 

 no mention of it, and Heuen-Thsang talks of the ruins of several 

 large monasteries in the neighbourhood of Bhagulpore, but gives us no 

 clue to the one under notice. It is to be presumed therefore that it 

 had been ruined and forsaken, or at least had fallen into decay, before 

 the advent of the latter Chinese traveller. The inscriptions on the 

 minor figures, in the Gupta character of the 3rd and 4th century, shew 

 that the Vihara with its chief lares and penates had been established a 

 considerable period before that time, probably at the beginning of the 

 Christian era or even earlier, for Champa (modern Bhagulpore,) was 

 a place of great antiquity and the Buddhist took possession of it very 

 early as the capital of Eastern India, and established many Viharas 

 and chaityas in and about it. Though most of these have been des- 

 troyed by the ravages of time and the ruthless hands of adverse sectari- 

 ans, there still stand in its vicinity two round towers, each about seventy 

 feet high, the names of whose founders and the object for which they 

 had been built have long since been forgotten, but which from their 

 close resemblance to the pyrethra so common in Affghanistan and else* 

 where, are evidently Buddhist monuments of yore. 



Though the principal residents of Buddhist monasteries were priests 



3 o 



