1865_] Notes on Boodh Gya. 279 
in which the said arches occur, or whether they may not have been 
subsequently inserted. 
Genl. Cunningham, in his excellent Archeological Report for 1861- 
62, assigns A. D. 500 as the date of the building of the present ‘tope 
or temple, and names Amara Sinha as the builder. 
He also works out the same date from a certain inscription once 
said to have been therein found, and which he holds to be authentic. 
His arguments from the latter source appear to me to have been 
fully met and set aside by Baboo Réajendraléla Mitra in his 
paper on Boodh Gya in 1864, which was read before a meeting 
of the Bengal Asiatic Society, and in which he shews that Sir 
Charles Wilkin’s* inscription, in which the virtues of a shraddh 
performed here are much extolled—cannot be historically true, and 
also that the partial silence of Fa Hian, the great Chinese traveller 
in A. D. 400, does not prove the non-existence of the said tope at that 
time—the more so as Fa Hian speaks in Chap. XXXI of a great 
tower having been erected at the place where Foe (Buddha) obtained 
the law, i. e. under the Bo tree at Boodh Gya. 
Fergusson (p. 109, Vol. I) states the earliest authentic Hindu 
building to date A. D. 657, and in allusion to the great tope of Boodh 
Gya, which it is doubtful whether he ever visited, says to the effect 
that “the temple of Boodh Gya is certainly Buddhist—was built in 
the 14th century A. D. —is a square Hindu Vimana and a true 
‘ stupa’ as it never possessed any relic.” 
Montgomery Martin, in his account of Eastern India, alludes to 
Asoka as being the reputed founder of the temple, and doubts the 
authenticity of Amara’s inscription, as does also Buchanan Hamilton. 
It will thus be seen that the age of the building and of the arches 
are both open questions. 
And now, a few words as to the age of Hindu or eBoodiied build- 
ings :— 
Fergusson says—pages 4-5, Introduction‘ It is of more impor- 
tance to our present purpose that with this king (Asoka) B. C. 250, 
the architectural history of India commences; not one building, nor 
one sculptured stone having yet been found in the length and 
* That above alluded to, 

