616 Note on some Sculptures found in Peshawar. [No. 7. 



The abrogation of the edict proves no more than an admission that 

 in the exuberance of new-born zeal, or the half-informed ignorance of 

 recent conversion, the royal legislator had put forth an edict the ulti- 

 mate tendency of which was incompatible with the interests, or the 

 esoteric tenets, of the faith he had intended to disseminate. 



Such a state of religion as this both in the monarch aud the people 

 would well accord with the anomalous Buddhism of the sculptures 

 under review. 



But supposing even that the Buddhism of the edicts and of the 

 sculptures came up even to the orthodox standard of the day, it is fair 

 to conclude upon general grounds that that standard must have 

 varied considerably from the Buddhism of the present day, or even of 

 Buddhism as represented in its oldest extant sacred writings. 



No creed, the history of which has come down to us, has preserved 

 its purity uncorrupted through a long series of years, and it yet remains 

 to be shewn that Buddhism is an exception to all experience, that it 

 alone of all religions, has preserved its original form intact and free 

 from all novelties for far above two thousand years, and that the faith 

 of Sakya Muni was identical in all respects with that of Asoka, or 

 either with the tenets of the present day. 



It would indeed be possible to demonstrate that this is not the case, — 

 that novelties and corruptions have crept in, but it is sufficient to allude 

 to the want of complete identity in the practices of Buddhist nations 

 of our own time, in spite of the most extraordinary efforts recorded 

 to have been made to preserve uniformity, as a sufficient proof that 

 there have been departures from the original model. 



It is not, however, objected to the pillar edicts that they contain any 

 thing contrary to the doctrines of Buddhism, but that they omit all 

 mention of its leading tenets, all its usual forms of invocation, and all 

 allusion to the most remarkable facts in its history. 



But supposing for the sake of argument that the doctrines and the 

 practices of Buddhism in these days were literally identical with those 

 subsequently prevalent, it was yet the object of the royal legislator to 

 enforce the practices, rather than to disseminate (supposing he himself 

 understood them) the doctrinal niceties, of the Buddhist faith. 



With respect moreover to the want of historical allusions, if the 

 fragment described by Major Kittoe in the Society's Journal, No. 102, 



