184 7. J Notice on the Antiquities of Bhopal. 753 



It seems now to be certain that " Topes" are temples rather than 

 tombs, and every thing I have observed of their structure, or which can 

 be gathered from the representations given of them, corroborates this 

 view of their use or purpose. They may nevertheless have occasionally 

 been raised over the dead, — or some, like the gigantic one still existing 

 at Unrodhpoora in Ceylon, may have contained such small and strag- 

 gling chambers for the reception of funeral urns as are traceable in the 

 pyramids of Egypt for the deposit of mummies. Their primary con- 

 nection was however with the worship of the Divinity as then practised 

 — and a consideration of their structure, and a comparison of the usages 

 of the Jains, all show that a " Tope" was intended to represent Mount 

 Meru, — the central mount of the world, the native seat, or point of 

 divergence of the Caucasian races with its four shadow-giving trees,* 

 and four divergent riversf which watered the earth. The Jain temples 

 still contain models of towers, square or round, standing in inclosures, 

 and diminishing by successive stories with balconies. These towers 

 the " Juttees" or Jain priests declare to be symbolical of Meru, round 

 which pilgrims should solemnly walk with their right hands to the 

 mount. Circumambulation is still "a ceremony of the Hindoos, more 

 particularly during the Deewalee, or festival of light, at the temple on 

 the fabled hill of Goverdhun near Muthra : — further, the holy hill of 

 Gungree, the source, as is believed, of the Indus, the Sutlej, the Gogra 

 [or Ganges] and the Burrampooter, is still, as I often heard when in 

 Tibet, encircled by Lamaic pilgrims ; the construction of the Topes 

 admits of or provides for worshippers moving round and round them : — ; 

 the Jains now perambulate within the square areas of their temples and 

 draw Parisnath on certain occasions on his elephant or car through the 

 inclosing cloisters, that is round the square court, and lastly the 

 Buddhists of Tibet similarly pass round and round the oblong struc- 

 tures of stone which are found near every village. 



The worship of the tree which occurs so frequently among these 

 sculptures has left its traces in the regard still paid by Jains and 

 Hindoos to the Burr and Peepul trees, or especially to the Burr, the 

 Peepul and the Awnla when growing together. To this devotion may 

 also be referred the circumstance that no Hindoo will ever cut down or 



* Jamun, Kuddamb, Burr, Peepul. 

 t Seeta, Bhudra, Chuksoo, Aliknunda, 



