BONES OF BUDDHA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9632, 26 October 1909, Page 3

BONES OF BUDDHA.

The Indian papers have recently given accounts of a rare and valuable find made by the Archaeological l)e ■ partment. Tne new discovery is nothing less than some bones of Buddha which have been u earthed near the city of Peshawur, in the

North-west Frontier Province. Tne history of the discovery reads like a romance. Between the fourth and seventh centuries of our era, several Buddhist pilgrims came to India from China to visit the holy places of Buddhism. Three of these pilgrims—Fa Hien, Sung-Yun, and Hieun 'L'hsang—came to Peshawur, then known as Furuahapura; and they describe in glowing colours the size and mangificence of its religious edifices.

Chief simung these was a monastery built by the famous Emperor Kanishka, about the time of Christ, and by its side u towering pagoda.

or "stpua," in which the Emperor had enshrined some of the relics of . Buddha. The pagoda was, they us, of solemn beauty and majestic | grandeur, adorned with friezes and I layers of precious substances. With the decy of Buddhism in the north-west Frontier, both pagoda and mona.3trry seem to have fallen to ruin; or perhaps they may have been thrown down by invading hosts from the north. They disappaar completely from all liteiary records after the mediaeval a?es, and t'ieir very site was forgotten. A ut eighteen nmnths ago the ' neologies! Department set t. .v<;ra to discover what remains of th> fmous structures might still be hiddtn beneath the ground. The operations were in charge of Dr. D B. Spooner, the archaeological superintendent on the Frontier. For sotiw minths it seemed as though nothing was left but interminable debris of bricks and stones. Little by littl 1 , however, there emerged the basement of what is certainly the largest pagoda that exists in India. From side to side it measures nearly 300 feet. Its plan is cruciform, with circular towers at the tour inner corner?, a feature hitherto unknown in sucn buildings. That this was the ptgoda erectd by Kanishka ther? could be no shadow of dosbt, si:d the exciting task remind of searching for the relics ut ' the Buddha, which the Emperor had enshrined wit.'iin it. A shatt was sunk in the centre of the monument j and laboriously carried down through > the heavy foundations, until, at a

depth of some twenty feet below the surface, the expectations of the diggers were realised by finding a stone-built chamber, and in a corner of it the telic-caskek, standing where it had been placed nearly two thousand years ago. The ''lllustrated London News" publishes two photographs of the casket. Inside the casket was a simple reliquary of crystal, hexagonal in shape, and hollowed at one end to receive holy relics —four small pieces of bone packed closa ; together, and closed in their rest-ing-place with the royal seal. This find is, of course, of immense interest to the 100,000,000 Buddhiscs in the world. The destination of the relics Is not yet known.