The Buddhists assert the ashes of their Buddha to have been divided
after his cremation into eight towns, and buried there. King _Ashoka_ is
said to have seven of these graves re-opened again so as to distribute
the holy ashes among some 84000 metal, crystal or stone vases or urns to
cause them to be spread throughout his empire and without, and kept
under barrows or _stûpas_.
We know the proper history of Buddhism to begin with this king in the
_third_ century _before_ our era, and in several parts of Hindustan are
found still undamaged inscriptions chiselled at his order upon rocks as
so many unobjectionable evidences of this fact. I willingly allow this
number of 84000 to be very exaggerated—yet, it is a fact proved by many
an existing and opened grave, that the Buddhists of that or later date,
and wherever they might have settled, always kept small quantities of
ashes or bones they considered the remains of their Buddha’s corpse, in
order to be buried under earthen or stone barrows to honour them as the
relics of the great Master himself.[5]
There where the Buddhists founded a community, there, under such a hill
or _stûpa_ they also buried an urn of ashes whereas the hill itself was
honoured as the Master’s grave.[6]
Those hills however, were badly protected from the influences of
temperature and time, and not proof against the profaning hand of man,
and therefore built of stone, the _dâgaba_ or _dagob_, generally placed
on a pedestal of composed leaves of the lotus, the _padmâsana_, hardly
dispensible to Indian images.[7]
Many temples’ ornaments have been copied after these dagobs, among
others, the shape of the small-sized prayer-bell which is still rung by
the _visju_ in chinese temples even at this day. These are facts proving
this tomb-stone’s having been highly honoured.