1869.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 189 



of a flag-staff, which is also the case in some coins and seals of India. 

 On other coins the boar is accompanied with a dart or a knife as in 

 Gallic coins. Such resemblances lead one to suppose that the two races 

 have followed a common prototype. It would perhaps be an obstacle 

 to this hypothesis that they were so widely separated by time and dis- 

 tance. The dynasty of the Chalukyas of Dekkan who adopted the 

 type of coin which we allude to, is known but from the beginning of 

 the 5th century of our era; they have, however, preserved a tradition 

 that 59 generations of their ancestors had ruled in the countries to the 

 north of the Nerbudda, and consequently not far from the common 

 cradle of the Indo-European race as well as of others. 



In another essay, that on some lately discovered sepulchral tumuli, 

 containing more than one cell and one urn, the author, after giving a 

 list of a number of tumuli in Scandinavia in which cells and several 

 urns have been discovered, placed partly horizontally side by side, 

 and partly vertically at different heights, remarks that the archaso- 

 logists of the North are ordinarily of opinion that such tumuli are 

 destined to receive each the remains of the different members of one 

 particular family. The author, however, does not participate in this 

 opinion ; he thinks that the explanation regarding these tumuli and 

 their accessories, should be sought by comparing them with the topes and 

 tumuli of Asia. It is known that in them there have been discovered 

 more than one cell and one urn, the same as in the monuments of the 

 North, and Mr. Holmboe finds the solution of this peculiarity in the 

 description of the erection of the Mahastupa of Ceylon. The Maha- 

 vanso (Tumour's Translation, I p. 29,) relates that upon Raja Dhu- 

 thagamaui's having laid the foundation of the monument, in the second 

 century before our era, and deposited the relics of saints in his cell, 

 thousands of relics were deposited by the people on the principal cell. 

 This narrative leads to the conclusion that a great number of persons 

 had preserved the relics of a number of dead of their family in order to 

 avail themselves of the occasion to deposit them in a magnificent monu- 

 ment ; and as the narrator does not describe this affair as anything 

 extraordinary, we may suppose that the placing of different relics in 

 one monument was a common custom. As supports to this hypo- 

 thesis, Mr. Holmboe cites many examples of relics which had been pre- 



! served for a long time before getting a resting place in a monument, or 



i under the earth. 



