t 



jan.— mar. 1858.] Numismatic Gleanings. 225 



The prevalence of the Buddhist faith over the whole of India for 

 two or three centuries before and for a still longer period after 

 the Christian era, sufficiently explains the preference shown to 

 such symbols. 



Extensive Buddhist remains can still be traced throughout the 

 Madras Presidency. A principle seat of this sect, appears to have 

 been on the banks of the Kistna in the Northern Circars. The 

 ruins of one of the most magnificent dehgopes ever constructed, ' 

 can still be traced at Dipaldinni, between the ancient city of D'ha- 

 ranikotah and the more modern town of Amaravati in the Guntoor 

 district. From this were obtained the interesting sculptured mar- 

 bles now deposited in the Government Central Museum. A very 

 few years ago, a mound or tope was demolished by the Collector to 

 procure materials for the repair of a road at Gudiwadah in the 

 Masulipatam district, from which several curious Buddhist relics 

 were disinterred and two other topes (one of them at B'hattiprolu 

 in Guntoor) still exist in the same part of the country. Several 

 stone vases containing crystal caskets filled with similar remains 

 were discovered by the Zemindar of Pittapoor in digging tip the 

 foundations of an ancient temple about the year 1842-3. The 

 articles were sent to the Literary Society by the Zemindar, at the 

 request of Sir Henry Montgomery, then at Rajahmundry, and are • 

 now in the Government Central Museum. They were figured in 

 PI. 2 of the XVth vol. of this Journal, but through some oversight, 

 no desctipticn of the plate appears to have been inserted. 



Dr. Stevenson has distinctly proved that the great pagoda of 

 Jagannath at Pooree where the pilgrims eat indiscriminately food 

 prepared by the lowest castes, and where as with the Buddhists, all 

 distinction of caste ceases, was originally a Buddhist temple. The 

 same may be asserted of Conjeveram where the principal place of 

 ■worship, that dedicated to Kamakshi Devi was doubtless in the first 

 instance a Buddhist fane. So firmly was the^Buddhist religion estab- 

 lished in Kalinga (the old name of Telingana) that Asoka thought 

 it unnecessary to issue some of his more stringent edicts in that 

 province.* Nor are similar indications of this creed wanting in the 



* Journal Asiatic Society Bengal, Vol. VII. 269. 



