So far as I can can make out from the photograph, the right hand of Buddha on the plaque is raised in the attitude of blessing or giving, and is not hanging down. Thus, in two essential points the plaque does not suit the Bodh Gaya temple. Again, Dr. Spooner rashly identifies the two figures outside the cell of the temple on the plaque with the silver images seen by Hiuen Tsang. But those images were on the right and left of the outside door of the three lofty halls, a structure distinct from the temple, and apparently connected by a passage with it, if the words "inner chamber" refer to the temple. In that respect, too, the identification fails. The plaque was found at Pataliputra, not at Bodh Gaya, and it seems to me probable that it may represent one of the great temples at Pataliputra. There is no reason to deny that one of them may have been built with a straight-lined steeple. Nothing is known about the details of their architecture. The above argument, it will be observed, is in no way dependent on the identification of the existing temple, as restored by Mr. Beglar, with the temple seen by Hiuen Tsang. My criticisms simply deal with the fact that the representation on the plaque does not agree with the description recorded by the pilgrim, whose language forbids the hypothesis that an earlier temple, crowned by a stupa with fivefold hti had ever existed. While I do not suggest for a moment that the plaque actually represents the temple at Ti-lo-shi-ka (Tiladaka) described by the pilgrim (Beal, II, 103; Watters, II, 105), description of that structure agrees as well with the plaque as that of the Bodh Gaya temple. But in neither case is the agreement complete. Watters writes: "At the head of the road [or 'passage '], through the middle gate were three temples (ching-she) with disks on the roofs and hung with small bells; the bases were surrounded by balustrades [i.e., railings'], and doors, windows, beams, walls, and stairs were ornamented with gilt work in relief. The middle temple had a stone ['erect' in Beal] image of the Buddha thirty feet high; the left-hand one had an image of Tara Bodhisattva; and the right-hand one had an image of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva; these three images were all of bronze." To sum up. I am of opinion that the temple depicted on the plaque cannot be identified with any approach to certainty. It does not agree with Hiuen Tsang's description of that building, and there is no sound reason for believing that the representation on the plaque is the "oldest drawing" of the Bodh Gayā temple. II.-Reply to Mr. Vincent Smith's Note. I am indebted to the Secretary for affording me an opportu nity of commenting upon the criticisms with which Mr. Vincent Smith has honoured my short notice of the Bodh-Gaya plaque. The notice in question was intended merely as an explanation of the design selected by the Society for the cover of their Journal, and was, as Mr. Smith rightly infers, written on the assumption that the temple depicted on the plaque was indeed the temple at Bodh-Gaya. The adoption of the plaque by the Society was based upon the same assumption, and as the Society is familiar with the monument and has had access to the plaque, I had looked upon their adoption of it as confirmatory of my own opinion in regard to it. If I have taken the accuracy of this identification too much for granted, or if I have expressed myself too positively on the subject, I can only express my regret for the circumstance. I must admit that there is no absolute proof that the two buildings are the same, but I may nevertheless maintain that of all the buildings known to us in Bihār to-day, the famous temple at Bodh-Gaya is far and away the most like this one which we see depicted on this plaque. If the Bodh-Gaya shrine were of an ordinary type, this would signify but little, possibly. In point of fact, it is a most unusual style, almost (I do not say quite) unique in India; and it seems to me that this fact lends the visible and obvious resemblance between the two an added weight. It is also clear from the plaque itself that the temple it depicts was one of great importance and celebrity, in which again the agreement between the two is quite correct. An unimportant temple would not show either the extensive and costly railing round about it, nor this multitude of minor stupas, nor would there be such a column set up in front of it as this one which we see. I therefore do not agree with Mr. Vincent Smith that the rail and the little stupas should be summarily eliminated from consideration. It may be true, as he observes, that they are features common to other monuments of importance, but the fact remains that the only important Buddhist monument in the neighbourhood of Patna where these features actually do occur, is the great temple at Bodh-Gayā; which does not seem to me an altogether negligible factor in the case. When the type of temple is so unusual as this, and when the drawing here agrees so generally as it does with the one important monument of this period known to us in this region, it does not seem to me that the assumption under challenge is indefensible. That a residuum of doubt remains, however, may be admitted. Whether that doubt is quite so large as Mr. Smith makes out is perhaps less sure. His objection to my identification is based upon certain discrepancies between the figure on the plaque and the description of the Bodh-Gayā temple given by Hiuen Tsang, particularly the fact that Hiuen Tsang tells us (1) that the roof was crowned with an amalaka, (2) that the image in it had its hand in the Bhumisparsa mudrā and (3) that on the east of the temple there was a series of three subsidiary halls which do not appear upon our plaque. Now it seems to me that despite these discrepancies my identification may still be right on either one of two quite possible hypotheses. Mr. Smith says that up to Hiuen Tsang's time (middle of the seventh century) there had been only two temples at this site, (a) the one erected by Asoka and (b) the one built by some Brahman to replace the older one. It was the latter which the pligrim saw, and the account of which is held to be discrepant with our plaque. What precludes the possibility that the temple on the plaque is actually the older of the two ? We should remember that it is inscribed in Kharoshthi, a script the Mauryas used, that it was recovered at Asoka's capital and that it shows a column of generally Maurayan charac ter before the shrine, and that while certainly an early plaque no lower limit for assignment has yet been fixed. The fact that Hiuen Tsang speaks of this older building as having been a little chaitya can hardly be decisive against this possibility, inasmuch as he certainly had no personal knowledge of it; the actual railing which we see (of Sungan date) suggests the opposite, and on purely a priori grounds it is improbable that Asoka would have built either a small or an insignificant shrine at what has always been the holiest of Buddhist sites. There seems therefore a clear possibility that the temple on the plaque is actually Asoka's own. Such resemblance as is now discernible between it and the modern temple will in this case be explainable by "Amara" having copied the general style of the original when he rebuilt it (a very natural thing to do), whereas the minor differences will also be accounted for. This seems therefore quite a possible alternative. A more probable one to my mind is that the plaque depicts the actual structure which the pilgrim saw, but in an older form than when the pilgrim saw it. Mr. Smith accepts tentatively my guess as to the dating of the plaque in the second century and yet, while noting that Hiuen Tsang's visit fell in the seventh century, seems to assume that throughout this lengthy period of time, the temple of the Brahman must have remained always in its pristine form. This is by no means necessarily so. Whether my date for the plaque be exact or not, the presence of Kharoshthi on it and its occurrence in the neighbourhood of Kushan coins, makes its relegation to the Kushan period not unreasonable, and there is certainly, so far as I see now, no positive evidence to put it later. If we say tentatively third century, we are hardly likely to be erring greatly in the upward direction; it may be older, though, than first appears. But allowing Mr. Smith one added century and taking the third as our upward limit in this case this leaves four hundred years between the pilgrim's visit and our plaque. Is it warrantable to assume, as Mr. Smith apparently does, that no alteration or development, could possibly have taken place in such an interval? I should suppose such a contention difficult. I am, as I write these lines, sitting in an ancient palace, erected even less than this full period of time ago, and the utter and pathetic ruin which has overwhelmed the major part of it brings forcibly to mind the meaning of four centuries in India. Had such a temple as our plaque depicts been erected at Bodh-Gaya in the third or any previous century (and we do not know at all when the present temple really was constructed originally), with a stupa upon its summit, and a fivefold hti, we may feel reasonably confident that long before Hiuen Tsang arrived, so exposed a portion of the whole as this would have fallen into disrepair and quite conceivably have been replaced, with his amalaka. I do not see that any serious weight attaches, then, to this discrepancy. There is surely no proof at all that the amalaka was part of the original design. An even stronger consideration of the same sort makes me doubt still more the decisiveness of the further feature in Hiuen Tsang's description upon which Mr. Smith lays so much stress, namely, the three reputed halls upon the east side of the shrine. What the pilgrim tells us calls to mind the temple complex familiar to us in Orissa now, where we have the main tower or sikhara and its porch (the jagamohan) and then in some cases further halls in front of both; in all, a series of four units in some instances, just as our pilgrim states. Mr. Smith admits that the halls were distinct from the temple proper. dangerous for his argument? Subsidiary cially when detached, are by no means necessarily contemporary with the monument. Indeed, I have the impression that they are even normally additions to it, and that in perhaps the majority of instances these disconnected halls are gradual accretions, added on from time to time. This is particularly true, in the case of famous and important temples, where worship is performed over many centuries, and it is therefore especially conceivable for such Is not this admission halls like this, espe |