1848.] Sanscrit Inscription from Behar. 495 



for the world's benefit, these two gems of tumuli evidently as beautiful 

 as the peak of mount Indrasaila. He was lauded by the good with 

 reiterated applauses, as the Lord of fame, though his chief glory was 

 his keeping the true word of salvation ; a path whose glory consists in 

 the abandonment of all worldly pomp and pleasure. By him was the 

 splendour of even Bhanwantari (the physician of the Gods) eclipsed, 

 for he soothed by a glance the thought-fever of afflicted mortals. The 

 world, all whose wants and wishes he supplied, took him for the (all- 

 bestowing) Kalpa tree. By him was erected this temple of Vajrasana, 

 the best in the world, lofty as his own soul, the sight of which put the 

 Gods in doubt whether it were mount Kaildsa ; they beheld by him 

 the every way bountiful, the friend of all that exists, the practiser of 

 asceticism, whose practice thereof was combined with a thirst for know- 

 ledge and a perseverance as imitable as his other virtues. 



" By him, occupied in his high and holy duties, were built two 

 vaulted edifices in the northern regions, as the pennants of his fame. 

 Having made this fame a staircase (or Jacob's ladder) to the city of 

 salvation, it was his desire that the whole multitude of his ancestors 

 — his father taking the lead — should thus attain the fruits of saving 

 knowledge. 



" So long as the tortoise shall support the earth ocean-garlanded, so 

 long as the bright-beamed sun shall shine, dispelling darkness, so long 

 as night shall seem pleasant with the cool moon-beam, so long may 

 the fame of Vdradeva shine lustrous on the earth !" 



Remarks. 



This curious, and I think valuable inscription, I discovered partly 

 by chance, for though I had made every enquiry I learnt nothing 

 till I was about leaving the village of Pesserawa, for my onward 

 march, when some children gave information of its having been found in 

 the mound from whence the people were then digging bricks, and which 

 has been the site of a large Bauddha temple of the Tantra period, which 

 the numerous idols, mutilated and entire, clearly show ; there have been 

 more than one temple on this spot, for the mound is extensive. The 

 inscription points to this being the case ; there is no tradition beyond a 

 couplet concerning Durga or Devi, to whom there is a small temple of 

 modern date a little to the west of the mound ; but saving the idol of 

 Durga slaying Mahishasura, the rest are all purely Buddhist collected 



