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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Last winter's campaign of exploration opened in November with a small excavation near the village of Rāmpurvā, in the Champāran District of Bengal, well known for the Aśoka pillar discovered by Mr. Carlleyle in 1877. When Mr. Carlleyle first visited the spot, this pillar was lying in marshy ground, with its top and the bell-shaped capital attached, protruding a few feet above the surface; but the lion crowning the capital had disappeared. Proceeding to excavate around it, Mr. Carlleyle appears to have gone to a depth of some 8 feet, to have exposed most of the shaft, and to have copied the inscription on it. Nothing, however, was done either by him, or by Mr. Garrick who went to Rāmpurvā a year or two later, towards preserving the column, and the site remained undisturbed until last autumn, when I deputed my Personal Assistant, Pandit Daya Ram Sahni, to carry out some trial digging there. I was induced to do this in view of a proposal made by Dr. Bloch to re-erect the pillar; for I was anxious, before the work was taken in hand, to ascertain precisely, if possible, its original position, and also whether any other remains existed round about.
page 1088 note 1 A bull, it will be remembered, is mentioned by Hiuen Thsang as having surmounted an Aśoka pillar at the Jetavana at Śrāvastī.
page 1089 note 1 J.R.A.S., 1907, p. 998.Google Scholar
page 1089 note 2 The north and west outer faces have not yet been excavated.
page 1090 note 1 These gateways bring to mind the gopurams of many South-Indian temples, which grow smaller and smaller as one approaches the central shrine.
page 1095 note 1 According to Dr. Bloch, this is the correct modern pronunciation of the name, not Budh-Gaya as it is often spelt. The name is believed to mean “the Gayā of the Bodhi-tree incarnation of Viṣṇu.”
page 1096 note 1 See Cunningham's, Coins of Ancient India, pp. 80 and 84.Google Scholar
page 1096 note 2 This photograph has been taken from a cast of the pillar made for the Indian Museum in Calcutta. It would have been impossible to procure so good a photograph of the pillar in the position in which it stood at that time.
page 1097 note 1 How widespread and popular the Sun worship in India once must have been, becomes evident to us from the many small clay horses which we now find put up as offerings at most of the Muhammadan Dargāhs in North-Eastern India. The people now explain these clay horses as Pīr-kī-sawārī, ‘the equipage of the Pir.’ In reality, however, they go back to the same class of votive offerings of which a great number has been found, e.g., in Olympia; see Möller, Sophus, “Urgeschichte Europa's,” 1905, p. 116.Google Scholar
page 1099 note 1 A.S.R., vol. i, pp. 330–348, and vol. vi, pp. 78–100.Google Scholar
page 1099 note 2 J.R.A.S., 1898, pp. 503–531, and 1900, pp. 1–24.Google Scholar
page 1099 note 3 J.A.S.B., vol. lxi (1892), pt. i, Extra No.Google Scholar
page 1102 note 1 Bloch, , J.A.S.B., vol. lxvii (1898), pt. i, pp. 274–290Google Scholar, and Ep. Ind., vol. viii, pp. 179–182Google Scholar, and Mahabodhi, p. 8.Google Scholar
page 1102 note 2 A.S.R., vol. xvi, Preface, p. iii.Google Scholar
page 1103 note 1 J.A.S.B., op. cit., pl. v, No. 21.
page 1104 note 1 Kielhorn, , Ind. Ant., vol. xvii (1888), pp. 61–64.Google Scholar
page 1108 note 1 One point only calls for mention. The name 
does not, in my opinion, mean “le tumulus du grand roi,” but merely “the Sayyid's mound.” The land on which the mounds stand was given by Maḥmud of 
to an ancestor of the present owner, according to the latter's account; and, as the members of this family are all Sayyids, and consequently addressed by the title of 
it would seem unsafe to see, with M. Foucher, an echo of the ancient designation in the modern name. Besides, the more natural vernacular rendering of “le tumulus du grand roi” would be 
or 
Ḍherī.
page 1109 note 1 This remark, as it stands, can never have been true in modern times. No remains whatever were traceable on the surface, and the majority of monuments met with were found to be buried to a depth of from 8 to 12 feet. It should be noted, further, that the mounds lie outside the Ganj gate, not outside the Lahore gate as stated.
page 1110 note 1 A few undecorated brick structures were unearthed further to the east, but their apparent lack of connection with the other remains, and their much higher level, lead me to think that they are relatively modern structures of no significance, and I accordingly leave them out of consideration.
page 1113 note 1 I examined the brick stūpas, and in the centre of two of them found stones cut in the form of a stūpas. These were undoubtedly reliccaskets. The small receptacle on the top probably contained a small bone relic.
page 1115 note 1 [It is presumed that Mr. Taw Sein Ko is only using B.C. 543 as the “orthodox” date of the death of Buddha.—ED.]
page 1116 note 1 Published at pages 101–102 of the Epiyraphia Indica, vol. v.Google Scholar
page 1117 note 1 A parallel to this may be found in the Maṇiyār Maṭh structure at Rājgīr, unearthed two years ago.