284 Notes on Boodh Gya. [No. 4, 
portico before described, by an arched door-way only 5 feet wide. 
This is faced, as shewn on the preceding page, with Boodhist bricks 
regularly cut, and is probably built internally of bricks on edge, and has 
been constructed on a centering, as has the inner room to which it leads. 
This arched room is 164 feet wide ; the difference between this and 
20 feet, which I have stated to have been the original internal width, 
being occupied with a lining of brick on which the arching rests. 
For 12 feet in height the walls north and south are straight—at 
this point there is a small cornice whence the arch springs, the said 
arch being evidently built brick on edge. 
The whole of the walls to the north and south, as well as the roof of 
the arching, is plastered white with a chess board pattern, in each 
square of which is painted in a reddish colour a sitting Boodh. There 
must thus be many thousands of these figures, now however, much 
obliterated by the hand of time. 
The total height of this chamber may be 20 feet, and adding 4 or 5 
feet for the thickness of the flooring of the upper room and of the arch, 
the story may be allowed to count as 26 feet. 
Before ascending to the terrace, I would observe that the “ Singha- 
sun” or throne where the figure of Boodha was placed, is still left as 
arranged at the last restoration (probably 500 A. D-) and there are 
still the holes in the stones, which 
were formerly filled by the rivet 
affixing gilt copper plates. 
Over the doorway and above the 
arch of this basement chamber is 

inserted in the wall a huge beam 
of Saul wood, evidently of great 
antiquity and to which allusion will be made hereafter. 
Ascending to the room above, we find 
a repetition of the lower arched chamber 
without the end of semicircular arched 
recess, and with no less than three arches 
at the entrance within one another, and all of 
the same character. The marginal sketch 
taken from a photograph shews these, and 
it is difficult to understand their object. 


