640 On the Buddhist Emblem of Architecture. [No. 165. 



P. S. — Since writing the above — on shewing my explication of the 

 side of the coin above referred to, and especially of the central emblem, 

 to an intelligent Boodhist priest, he was much delighted with, and 

 acquiesced in, it. On being asked what he had hitherto considered the 

 central emblem to have referred to, he replied ; " to the Rajpaleng, or 

 throne, on which Gaudama was impregnated with the Boodhic spell." 

 On being pressed for his reasons, he said, "because it bore a resemblance 

 to that species of foot-stool, called a drum Morah /" It is thus, that a 

 somewhat similar shaped figure has been so employed in the pictorial 

 representations of the life of Gaudama. With reference to the Rose-shaped 

 Ornament discussed, I may be accused of a botanical inaccuracy, as the 

 number of petals in the species Rosa arvensis, and Rosa canima, are 

 " five ;" whereas that of those in the representation on the sculpture are 

 " eight ;" but to this I attach but little importance : 1st, because the 

 whole appertains -to a rude, and inaccurate age ; and 2ndly, because it 

 is peculiarly the genius of the Burmese language to style, and consider 

 as a Rose, any rosi-form flower. With reference to the Dentals : they 

 appertain, I believe, principally to the Ionic order, and are of rarer oc- 

 currence in the Doric. In the secluded locality from which I write, I 

 have no means, in order to determine their proper number, of consulting 

 any standard works on the subject ; but in the case of modern buildings 

 of a public character, I do not remember to have met with any other 

 number than " five." I may as well mention, that the present is not 

 the only instance in which the Rose forms an ornament in Boodhist 

 architecture ; they were found in abundance in various other Boodhist 

 cave temples, which I visited in old Arracan Town. I was likewise 

 informed by a friend, who had visited most of the cave temples of West- 

 ern India, that the Rose is found alternating with a horse- shoe device, 

 and with a tiger's head ; and others, as ornaments on the friezes of those 

 reliques. 



