JOURNAL 
OF THE 
merA Tih COSOCTrET Y. 
en) 
Part I.—HISTORY, ARCHAHOLOGY, NUMISMATICS, 
PHILOLOGY ann LITERATURE. 

AR enn Rarer 
No. 1.—1865. 
eee 
Description of the Buddhist Ruins at Bakariya Kund, Benares-—By 
the Rev. M. A. Suurrine, LL. B., and C. Horne, Esg., C. S., 
Judge of Benares. Illustrated by Plans and Photographs.* 
[Received 15th April, 1864.] [Read 4th May, 1864.] 
The fact that Benares is the birth-place of Buddhism and that in it 
Sakya Muni first ‘‘ turned the wheel of the Law” or in other words 
promulgated the peculiar dogmas of the Buddhist creed, is generally 
believed to rest’on good historic grounds. This circumstance alone, 
independent of the concurrent testimony of Hindu writers, gives a 
high antiquity to the city. If, as there is reason to believe, Sakya 
Muni in the early part of the sixth century, B. C., inhis own estima- 
tion attained to the mysterious and mystical condition of Buddhahood 
under the Bodhi tree at Gya, and thence proceeded to Benares, we 
may fairly imagine that he did so because it was then a city of much 
influence, if not also of great sanctity, among the Hindus, especially 
the Brahmins. In this case the true epoch of ancient Benares must 
date from an earlier period still. 
Had the Hindus been imbued with the desire of recording the 
memory of themselves in huge buildings of brick and stone, as the 
* Copied in the lithographs issued herewith. 

