Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/117

Rh The progress of the excavations at Sârnath may be expected to disclose many remains of the Maurya age, but they are difficult to get at, being buried under the buildings of later generations.

In ancient India, as is now a common practice in China, both the Buddhists and the Jains were in the habit of defraying the cost of expensive religious edifices by subscription, each subscriber or group of subscribers being given the credit of having contributed a particular pillar, coping-stone, or other portion of the edifice on which the contributor's name was inscribed. The subscriptions, of course, must have been collected in cash, the work being carried out by the architect according to plan. The record of individual donors was intended not only to gratify their vanity and the natural desire for the perpetuation of their names, but also for the practical purpose of securing for themselves and their families an accumulation of spiritual merit to serve as a defence against the dangers of rebirth. This special purpose is frequently expressed in the Indian records. Dedicatory inscriptions Were very numerous at Bharhut. It is interesting to observe that the same practice of building by subscription existed in Hellenistic Asia. At the temple of Labranda in Caria, dating from the reign of Nero, or a little later, Sir Charles Fellows found twelve ﬂuted columns, each of which bore a panel recording that it was the gift of such and such a person