212 W. Theobald — Notes on some of the symbols found on the [No. 3, 
of malefactoi'S, cannot in any sense be regarded as originating in bis 
teaching, the definition whereby Mr. Thomas would seem to exclude the 
claim of many Buddhist emblems, to that name. To assert, howevei’, 
that now-a-days the Cross has no title to be regarded as a Christian em- 
blem is such obvious pedantry, that a similar contention against the 
acceptance of Buddhist symbols may bo equally rejected on similar 
grounds. Again Mr. Thomas adds “ The Boddhi tree was no more 
essentially Buddhist than the Assyrian sacred tree or the Hebrew grove, 
or the popularly venerated trees of India at lai-ge.” Now this again is 
confounding two wholly different matters, since the Assyrian tree and 
the Hebrew ‘ grove ’ have no vegetable individuality save in the name 
preposterously bestowed on them by euphemistic pedants, but are sym- 
bols of Nature worship homologous with the ‘Sistrun’ of 7s is or the 
‘ lingum, ’ of Mahadev, while the trees reverenced by Buddhists in India, 
Ceylon, or Burma, owe their sole claim to respect to their historic (as 
believed) association with events in the life of Buddha. Despite there- 
fore the expressed opinion of so great an authority as Mr. Thomas, there 
are, I think good and sufiicient grounds for still regarding some of these 
symbols as Buddhist in conception and significance. 
The stupa is represented either by three semicircles, one of which 
rests on the other two or with an additional row below, making six semi- 
circles in all. That these are regarded as so many crypts or relic 
chambers in posse, is proved by those examples in which each division or 
chamber is seen occupied by a reliquary, shaped like a dice box, or the 
small Indian drum, called ‘ dag-dagi ' used by itinerant loaders of bears 
and monkeys. Besides the simple stupa, this symbol has many variants. 
22. ‘ Stupa ’ with doo on the summit. Fig. 49. 
In this symbol a dog is seen standing on the stupa in an energetic 
attitude as though barking. What the precise meaning of the dog is in 
this situation, it is not easy to say. Mr. Thomas gives several figures of 
a dog, but strange to say, does not show one in connection with the stupa, 
which is so generally the case, as to seem the rule though it often 
happens that but a trace of the stupa is preserved, and I have cer- 
tainly never seen a case where the dog was so figured as to render it 
eertain that he was not represented as standing on a stupa. Mr. Thomas 
speaks of the animal as the “ objectionable dog ” and elsewhere as a 
“ playful puppy, ” but it may be questioned if the dog was regarded as 
objectionable by those who placed its image on the stupa, or if it was 
merely introduced as a playful puppy without any ulterior significance. 
The figure of a dog in connection with a Buddhist stupa recalls to 
mind the use to which the animal was put in the bleak highlands of Asia, 
