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JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
sovereign, both as a gold coin and a supreme ruler, derives itself 
from this Sanscrit word suvarna — in the first place denoting the 
highest or most valuable coin of the realm ; and secondly, as 
indicating the supreme power of the Euler of the realm, termed the 
sovereign. 
It will be plain then why the tomb of a sovereign should be 
surrounded by a circle of stones, and in some cases by three con- 
centric circles, as a token of the buried monarch's supreme power. 
Hence it is probable, as Mr. Pergusson says, that many of these 
stone circles denote the scene of important battles, in which kings 
and great leaders may have fallen, and their tombs indicated, as 
well as their dignity and personal majesty, by the size or multiplied 
form of the circles surrounding their graves. 
All this is in keeping with the known symbolism of the Indian 
Topes, which were undoubtedly tombs surmounted by the symbol of 
the super-terrestrial world, and surrounded by circles of well- 
wrought stones; and it is difficult to suppose that such marked 
resemblances in the East and West were altogether accidental. I 
may here perhaps be permitted to make an observation on the 
meaning of the word tee, which is so frequently used to designate 
the surmounting umbrella-shaped structure on the top of the tope 
or stupa, and to receive which perhaps the hole on the top of the 
dolmen was designed. It is not generally known that this word 
is the corruption of the Pali " khettiya," signifying "a world" or 
"an earth," just as in the north the same word is rendered tsdh, 
from the Sanscrit Icshetra, with the same meaning ; from all which 
we gather, what indeed cannot be disputed by any one who has 
carefully considered the subject, that all these structures, whether 
dolmens, stupas, or topes, represent the lower world, whilst in the 
developed form of the same buildings the tee, or tsdh, symbolizes 
the worlds or earths supposed to exist in superposition to our own ; 
in other words, the mansions of heaven. 
Whilst speaking on the subject of the origin of these rude stone 
megalithic remains, and endeavouring to trace them to an attempt 
to imitate what is seen in nature, I may also allude to another form 
of the same kind of natural imitation ; I mean this, that when men 
began to leave the rude stone form of building, and erected pyra- 
mids and topes, they also followed a natural and most simple rule. 
It must be evident that, to a builder, the most striking example 
or imitation would be the work of the Great Architect, " who 
