In the centre of the upper part blooms the sacred Buddhist Tree, behind its altar, with its Chattee and garlands, occupying a position similar to that of the serpent in the other bas-relief. Two Garudas or Devas, or flying figures, present garlands, and two females, instead of griffins, approach it on either side.
In the lower part of the picture, the Inja, or chief male personage, sits enthroned upon the Naga, and is sheltered by its five-headed hood. On his right crouch three women on stools, eating and drinking, and each with her tutelary or snake behind her; and above them are a female Chaori bearer and a woman with a bottle—there are snakes behind both. On the other side are two women playing on drums, two on harps, one on a flute, and a fifth dancing, but all likewise with snakes, and all in the costume which Mr. Fergusson defines as that of the Hindus.
The worship of the Naga by the bearded Dasyus as represented in the upper bas-relief, does not occur again at Sanchi, and occurs only once at Amravati. There, however, the five-headed snake is seen very frequently in front of the dagoba, and in a position which is designed to command the worship, not only of the Dasyus, but of the whole world.
The Hindu male or chief canopied by the Naga, as shown in the lower bas-relief, occurs at least ten times at Sanchi, and must have occurred several hundred times at Amravati.
Mr. Fergusson asks, what are we to infer from these facts? Is it that the Naga, or serpent, was the god of the aborigines, whom the conquering Hindus adopted as their own deity, and pretended that it was for them he reserved his patronage and support? We must recollect that the Topes were built and the sculptures carved by Hindus, and that there is no representation of a Hindu doing honour to a snake; on the contrary, the snake always does homage to the Hindu.
Shall we conclude, then, that the Hindus were the real Naga-worshipping people, and that it was they who enforced serpent-worship on the Dasyus? A conquered people have not infrequently imposed their language, laws, and religion on their conquerors.
It is, perhaps, impossible to answer these questions: a cloud of obscurity hangs over the whole subject of Snake-worship; but we take it to have been the old and prevalent faith of the aborigines of India prior to the Aryan immigration, and we believe that the Aryans adopted it more and more generally as they mixed more and more widely with the Hindus, and their blood became less and less pure. It is not mentioned in the Vedas; there is scarcely an allusion in the Râmâyana; in the Mahâbâhrata it occupies a considerable space; it appears timidly at Sanchi in the first century of the Christian era; is triumphant at Amravati in the fourth; and might have become the dominant faith of India had it not been elbowed from its pride of place by Vishnuism and Sivaism, which took its position when it fell together with the Buddhism to which it had allied itself so closely.
We turn to the celebrated Tope at Amravati, a town situated on the river Kishna. The dimensions of the Tope are 195 feet for inside diameter of the outer circle, and 165 feet for that of the inner. The procession path is paved with slabs 13 feet long, and the inner rail is 2 feet wide. It has four gateways, and projecting about 30 feet beyond the outer rail; but these are in so dilapidated a condition that their size cannot be accurately ascertained.
These circles, or circular bas-reliefs, from the intermediate rails of the outer enclosure are thus described: