CONTENTS.
Bhilsa Topes—Topes at Sarnath and in Behar—Amravati Tope—Gandhara Topes—Jelalabad Topes—Manikyala Tope.
There are few subjects of like nature that would better reward the labour of some competent student than an investigation into the origin of Relic Worship and its subsequent diffusion over the greater part of the old world. So far as is at present known, it did not exist in Egypt, nor in Greece or Rome in classical times, nor in Babylon or Assyria. In some of these countries the greatest possible respect was shown to the remains of departed greatness, and the bones and ashes of persons who were respected in life were preserved with care and affection; but there was no individual so respected that a hair of his head, a tooth, or a toe-nail, even a garment or a utensil he had used, was considered as a most precious treasure after his death. In none of these countries does it appear to have occurred to any one that a bone or the begging-pot of a deceased saint was a thing worth fighting for; or that honour done to such things was a meritorious act, and that prayers addressed to them were likely to be granted. Yet so ingrained do these sentiments appear to be among the followers of Buddha, that it is difficult to believe that the first occasion on which this sentiment arose, was at the distribution of his remains on his attaining Nirvana at Kusinagara, B.C. 543. On that occasion, eight cities or kingdoms are said to have contended for the honour of possessing his mortal remains, and the difficulty was met by assigning a portion to each of the contending parties, who are said to have erected stupas to contain them in each of their respective localities.[59] None of these can now be identified with certainty—everything in future ages being ascribed to Asoka, who, according to popular tradition, is said to have erected the fabulous number of 84,000 relic shrines, or towers to mark sacred spots.[60] Some of these may be those we now see, or are encased within their domes; but if so, they, like everything else architectural in India, are the earliest things we find there. It is true, the great pagoda—the Shewé Dagon—at Rangoon is said to contain relics of all the four Buddhas of the present Kalpa, the staff of Kakasanda; the water-dipper of Konagamma; the bathing garment of Kasyapa, and eight hairs from the head of Gautama Buddha;[61] but supposing this to be true, we only now see the last and most modern, which covers over the older erections. This is at least the case with the great Dagoba at Bintenne, near Kandy, in Ceylon, in which the thorax-bone of the great ascetic lies enshrined. The ‘Mahawanso,’ or great Buddhist history of Ceylon, describes the mode in which this last building was raised, by successive additions, in a manner so illustrative of the principle on which these relic shrines arrived at completion, that it is well worth quoting:—“The chief of the Devos, Sumano, supplicated of the deity worthy of offerings for an offering. The Vanquisher, passing his hand over his head, bestowed on him a handful of his pure blue locks from the growing hair of the head. Receiving and depositing it in a superb golden casket, on the spot where the divine teacher had stood, he enshrined the lock in an emerald dagoba, and bowed down in worship.
“The thero Sarabhu, at the demise of the supreme Buddha, receiving at his funeral pile the Thorax-bone, brought and deposited it in that identical dagoba. This inspired personage caused a dagoba to be erected 12 cubits high to enshrine it, and thereon departed. The younger brother of King Devenampiatisso (B.C. 259), having discovered this marvellous dagoba, constructed another encasing it, 30 cubits in height. King Duttagamini (B.C. 161), while residing there, during his subjugation of the Malabars, constructed a dagoba, encasing that one, 80 cubits in height.” This was the “Mahiyangana dagoba completed.”[62] It is possible that at each successive addition some new deposit was made; at least most of the topes examined in Afghanistan and the Punjab, which show signs of these successive increments, seem also to have had successive deposits, one above the other.
Of all the relics of Buddha, the most celebrated is the left canine tooth. At the original distribution it is said to have fallen to the lot of Orissa, and to have been enshrined in a town called from that circumstance “Dantapura.” This, most probably, was the modern town of Puri, and the celebrated temple of Juggernath, which now flourishes there, not only in all probability occupies the same spot, but the worship now celebrated there is the same, mutato nomine, as that which was once performed in honour of this tooth. Be this as it may, it seems to have remained there in peace for more than eight centuries, when the king of the country, being attracted by some miracles performed by it, and the demeanour of the priests, became converted from the Brahmanical faith, to which he had belonged, to the religion of Buddha. The dispossessed Brahmans thereon complain to his suzerain lord, resident at Palibothra, in the narrative called only by his title Pandu, but almost certainly the Gautamiputra of the Andrabhitya dynasty. He ordered the tooth to be brought to the capital, when, from the wonders it exhibited, he was converted also; but this, and the excitement it caused, led to its being ultimately conveyed surreptitiously to Ceylon, where it arrived about the year 311;[63] and in spite of various vicissitudes still remains in British custody, the Palladium of the kingdom, as it has done during the last fifteen centuries and a half.[64]
About the same time (A.D. 324[65]) another tooth of Buddha was enshrined in a tope on the island of Salsette, in Bombay harbour, apparently in the time of the same Gautamiputra, but what its subsequent fate was is not known.[66] When the tope was opened for Dr. Bird, it was not there, but only a copper plate, which recorded its enshrinement, by a noble layman called Pushyavarman.[67]
Almost as celebrated as these was the begging-pot of Sakya Muni, which was long kept in a dagoba or vihara erected by Kanishka at Peshawur, and worshipped with the greatest reverence.[68] After paying a visit to Benares,[69] it was conveyed to Kandahar, and is still said to be preserved there by the Mussulmans, and looked upon even by them as a most precious relic.[70]
All this will become plainer as we proceed, for we shall find every Buddhist locality sanctified by the presence of relics, and that these were worshipped apparently from the hour of the death of the founder of the religion to the present day. Were this the place to do it, it would be interesting to try and trace the path by which, and the time when, this belief in the efficacy of relics spread towards the west, and how and when it was first adopted by the early Christian Church, and became with them as important an element of worship as with the Buddhists. That would require a volume to itself; meanwhile, what is more important for our present purpose is the knowledge that this relic-worship gave rise to the building of these great dagobas, which are the most important feature of Buddhist architectural art.
No one can, I fancy, hesitate in believing that the Buddhist dagoba is the direct descendant of the sepulchral tumulus of the Turanian races, whether found in Etruria, Lydia, or among the Scyths of the northern steppes. The Indians, however, never seem to have buried, but always to have burnt, their dead, and consequently never, so far as we know, had any tumuli among them. It may be in consequence of this that the dagobas, even in the earliest times, took a rounded or domical form, while all the tumuli, from being of earth, necessarily assumed the form of cones. Not only out of doors, but in the earliest caves, the forms of dagobas are always rounded; and no example of a straight-lined cone covering a dagoba has yet been discovered. This peculiarity, being so universal, would seem to indicate that they had been long in use before the earliest known example, and that some other material than earth had been employed in their construction; but we have as yet no hint when the rounded form was first employed, nor why the conical form of the tumulus was abandoned when it was refined into a relic shrine. We know, indeed, from the caves, and from the earliest bas-reliefs, that all the roofs of the Indians were curvilinear; and if one can fancy a circular chamber with a domical roof—not in stone, of course—as the original receptacle of the relic, we may imagine that the form was derived from this.[71]
Bhilsa Topes.