9C6 On the route of Fa-Man through Behar. [Sept. 



where the damsels offered milk and rice, perhaps tempted him ; the 

 dragon with brilliant scales is, no doubt, the snake Sehsa, which protected 

 Buddha from the rain with its hood. The " Pei-to tree" is, no doubt, 

 " Buddha's holy tree," and the place " where goats used to graze" is 

 probably Bukrowr. I must now again repeat that there is an ample extent 

 of ruins to warrant the supposition, that there must have been numerous 

 buildings around the holy tree, indeed the fact of three distinct and very 

 ancient sets of carvings and fragments of Dagopes of the earliest forms, 

 would strengthen our belief in the former existence of numerous edifices, 

 such as described by Fa-Iiian. 



We now come to a further enumeration of places, where buildings 

 had been erected by the Buddhists in early times. 



" In all these places they have also erected towers. 1st, In the 

 place where Foe obtained the Law, there are three Seng-kia-lan 

 (Viharas) ; in each is an establishment for the priests, the number of 

 whom is there very great. The people supply them with abundance, so 

 that they lack nothing. They keep precepts rigidly ; they observe the 

 greatest gravity in all their deportment ; in rising up, in sitting down, 

 and in going abroad." This would seem to be at Buddh Gaya ; but it is 

 doubtful, whether the remaining places enumerated, as follows, were so. 



" The four great towers which have been erected in commemoration 

 of the holy things done by Foe, during his sojourn in this world, 

 have been conserved to the present moment (A. D. 408) since the time 

 of his ' Nirvana' (death.) These four great towers are — first, where 

 he was born — second, where he obtained the law — third, where he 

 turned the wheel of the law; and fourth, where he entered Nirvana" 

 (died). 



Now it would seem, that this does not, as I have before hinted, allude 

 to Dagopes or Chaityas at Buddh Gaya exclusively, for in the first place 

 Sakya, i. e. Buddha was born at Kapilavastu somewhere, it is believed, 

 in the Oude territory. As to the second, most probably Budh Gaya was 

 the place ; by the third I should have little doubt but that Varanasi 

 or Benares was meant, for all the Buddhist historians record this event of 

 the prophet's life to have taken place there, i. e. his " turning the wheel 

 of the law;"* the present tower of Sarnath erected evidently since Fa- 



* ' Turning the wheel of the law' is a metaphorical or mystic expression, equivalent 

 when applied to a Buddha, to l commencing- his ministration.' Benares was no doubt the 



