1848.] Gleanings in Buddhism. 97 



image of Buddha of the same materials, and one of each of the two 

 descriptions of lions, should be formed, and that the before mentioned 

 images having been added to them the whole should be placed in a 

 Vihan or temple to be specially built for the purpose, and that when 

 all this had been effected, the circumstances should be recorded upon a 

 tablet of stone. To these requests Dhammasoka readily assented and 

 they were accordingly complied with." 



It was a great oversight of the Buddhists when they first admitted im- 

 ages, not of Buddha, into their Vihans. 1 say not of the 4th Buddha, for 

 his statue must have been coeval nearly with Ids worship, and it is pro- 

 bable that statues or images of previous Buddhas existed. Although 

 as he had been a Prince and a mortal his votaries could hardly have re- 

 quired to be so reminded. I am not aware of the precise period when 

 subsidiary images were introduced, but I suspect that if Buddha had, 

 as Fa Hian's account would imply, and the Buddhist scriptures forcibly 

 insist on an immediate predecessor (Kassap'6,) whose Chaittyas were 

 even then extant, the admission of such images most probably took 

 place before Sakya Muni appeared.* In whatever manner, or at what- 

 ever period it really happened, the existence of any images in the tem- 

 ples beyond those of Buddha, no doubt greatly helped the Brahmans, 

 not only when they began to scan the path to hierarchical pre-eminence, 

 and to sap the foundations of Buddhism, but when they eventually had 

 established a body of heretics or schismatics within even its own Vihans 

 ready to tolerate if not to adopt a more extensive polytheism, and thus 

 to render the final subversion of Buddhism easy and certain. 



* In the gorgeous description contained in the Pali Mahawanso of the relic receptacle 

 of the Maha Sthupo. "At the farthest points of the four sides were represented 

 (depicted) the four great Mythological Kings [Query — Heroes apotheosized?] Dattarattho, 

 Virulo, Verupakkho and Wessawanno, also 33 Dewos and 32 Princes, 28 chiefs of 

 Yakkhas. This was in B. C. 127. These were subordinate to a golden image of 

 Buddha, and near to it stood one of Mahabrahma, bearing the parasol of dominion. 

 (One) of Sakko, the inaugurator with his C hank, Pinchasikho with his harp in hand, 

 Kalanago and his band of singers and dancers, [which however priests are forbidden 

 to listen to or to look on,] the hundred armed Maro (death. )1 The description of the 

 relic chamber, however, differs from the accounts which have just been given, in 

 which last the relics are placed deep under ground for the sake of concealment, 

 apparently, whereas in the Maha Sthupo they were enshrined in a receptacle considerably 

 above the level of the ground. 



1 Tumour's Mahawanso, transl. p. 182. 



