& in India, Ceylon, Birmah, and Java. 
of them belong to the age of Aso- 
e great Buddhist emperor, who 
All India, B. Cc. 250, and in whose 
the state, ? 
nt Buddhist architecture 
is very singulay, and often very beauti- 
ful. It consists\of topes, rock-cut tem- 
ples, and monasteries. Some of the 
topes are monolfthic columns, more 
than forty feet high with ornamented 
capitals. Some are 1mmense domes of 
Xeylon, A. D. 
kept in six cases, the largest of 
of solid silver, is five feet high. 
precious stones.* Besides this, Ceylo 
possesses the “left collar-bone relic,” 
contained in a bell-shaped tope, fifty 4" 
feet high, and the thorax bone, which 
was placed in a tope built by a Hindoo 
raja, B. C. 250, around which two others 
were subsequently erected, the lagt be- 
-ing eighty cubits high. The 
tope, the finest in India,t isé: 
dome of stone, one hundred and six 
feet in diameter and forty-two feet high, 
with a basement and terrace, having a 
colonnade, now failen, sixty pillars, 
with richly carved sténe railing and 
gateway. 
The rock-cut te 2 les of the Buddh- 
ists are very anciént, and are numer- 
ous in India. Mr. Fergusson, who has 
made a special personal study of these 
monuments, Believes that more than 
nine hundred still remain, most of them 
within the Bombay presidency. Of 
these, many date back two centuries 
before @ur era. In form they singu- 
larly wesemble the earliest Roman 
Catholic churches. Excavated out of 
* Hardy, Eastern Monachism, p. 224. Fergusson, 
Pp. 9- hath. | 
{ Fergusson, p. 10, Cunningham, Bhilsa Topes 
i India. 
Buddhism ; or, the Protestantism of the East. 
[June, 
the solid rock, they have a nave and@ 
side aisles, terminating in an apse or 
semi-dome, round which the aisle is 
carried. One at Karli, built ing this 
manner, is one hundred and tweftty-six 
feet long and forty-five feet wide, with 
fifteen richly carved columng on each 
side, separating the nave frout the aisles. 
The facade of this temple fs also richly 
ornamented, and has a efeat open win- 
dow for lighting the ipterior, beneath 
an elegant gallery or 1od-loft. - 
The Buddhist rogk-cut monasteries 
in India are alsof numerous, though 
long since deserfed. Between seven 
and eight hundged are known to exist, 
most of them/ having been excavated 
between B. C.goo and A. D. 500. Buddh- 
ist monks, then as now, took the same 
of celibacy, poverty, and 
¢, which are taken by the mem- 
In ad- 
y to this, a// the Buddhist priests 
are Mendicants. They shave their heads, 
th a rope, and beg from house to 
ouse, carrying their wooden bowl in 
which to receive boiled rice. The old 
monasteries of India contain chapels 
and cells for the monks. The largest, 
however, had accommodation for only 
or forty ; while at the present time 
monastery in Thibet, visited by 
c*‘and Gabet (the Lamasery 
of Kounbéum), is occupied by four thou- 
sand lamas, Still, the arrangement of 
these monasteries shows clearly that 
the monkish System of the Buddhists 
is far too anciéat to have been copied 
from the Christians. 
Is, then, the reverse true? Did the 
Catholic Christians Gerive their monas- 
tic institutions, their bells, their rosary, 
their tonsure, their incénse, their mitre 
and cepe, their worship ‘of relics, their 
custom of confession, &c., from the 
Buddhists? Such is the opinion of 
Mr. Prinsep (Thibet, Tartary,¥and Mon- 
golia, 1852) and of Lassen (ndische 
Alterthumskunde), But, in r@; ly to 
this view, Mr.\Hardwicke objectS, that 
we do not find in history any traée of 
such an influence. \Possibly, therefoke, 
the resemblances may.be the result of 
