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XVI. — Notes on some of the Buddhist Opinions and Monuments of Asia, compared 

 with the Symbols on the Ancient Sculptured " Standing Stones'''' of Scotland. 

 By Thomas A. Wise, M.D., F.R.S.E. (With a Plate). 



(Read 2d January 1855.) 



The general identity, in idea and design, of the ancient monuments of Southern 

 and Western Europe, with those of Hindostan, is so marked, as to appear to justify 

 the inference that races of Asiatics proceeded westward at different ages, and 

 established themselves along the shores of the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas, and 

 part of the Atlantic Ocean ; along which route they have left characteristic monu- 

 ments, which resemble those of their original country* The ancient monuments 

 common to these distant regions are — 



1. Cairns and Barrows. These monuments, common to Celtic Europe and 

 India, are mounds of earth, or piles of stones. One near Hidrabad, in Central 

 India, was surrounded by a circle of stones, which exactly resembled those round 

 cairns in Europe. 



2. Cromlechs and Kist-vaens, consisting of two or more upright stones, which, as 

 props, support a horizontal block or slab, forming a chamber underneath. Such 

 monuments are pretty numerous in wild and retired 

 places in the peninsula of India (fig. 1), and contain a sar- 

 cophagus, with the bones of the dead.f In others, urns 

 are found, of red or black pottery, containing the ashes 

 of the bodies which had been purified by their passage 

 through fire. These monuments were usually paved 

 with a large slab, and have a circular hole \ in one of 

 the upright slabs which formed the walls, to allow the 

 passage of the soul, which was supposed to linger for 

 a time near the remains of the body after death. These 

 cromlechs were in some cases varied in their shape, and 



* These eastern races appear to have proceeded westward by Scythia and Scandinavia, on the 

 one hand (Worsaae, Primeval Antiquities of Denmark, edited by Mr Thoms, p. 132 et seq.) ; and by 

 the shores of the Mediterranean, on the other. Hence, we find the same cromlechs and cinctures of 

 pillar-stones on the mountains of Circassia, and the undulating plains of Tartary (Dennis's Etruria, 

 vol. ii., p. 321); Asia Minor (Irby and Mangles' s Travels, ch. vi. : Colonial Libr. Edit., p. 99) ; Tunis, 

 in Africa (Dennis, I. c.) ; Etruria and Sardinia (Dennis, ibid.) ; the Atlantic shores of Spain (Bor- 

 row's Bible in Spain, ch. vii.) ; of Gaul (Histoire des Peuples Britons, par Courson) ; and the 

 greater part of the British Islands. 



| Colonel Mackenzie sometimes found in these cromlechs urns, arms, and even coins. See 

 Maria Graham's Journal, p. 168. 



I See Letter by Capt. Newbolt, Asiatic Society, 17th July 1846. 



VOL. XXI. PART II. 3 z 



