Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/126

124 records on two pillars in the Nepalese Tarâti commemorate Asoka's visit to the Buddhist holy places in 249, and the Sânchî and Sârnâth pillars are inscribed with variant recensions of the Minor Pillar Edict dealing with Church discipline. A detailed list of the inscribed pillars will be found at the end of this chapter.

Many more pillars remain to be discovered. The two great monuments, one surmounted by the figure of a bull and the other by the wheel of the Law, which stood at the entrance of the famous Jetavana monastery near Sârvastî, are said to exist; and notwithstanding certain finds which seem to render my opinion untenable, I have a suspicion that the ruins of Srâvastî may lie buried in Nepalese jungles on the upper course of the Râptî. Pillars which may prove to be those of the Jetavana are located by report near Bairât and Matiâri in Tahsîl Nepâlganj. Other pillars are rumoured to exist in the Nepalese Tarâi to the north of Nichlawal beyond the Gorakhpur frontier, and also at Barewâ. and Maurangarh, north of the Champâran District.

Only two of the ten inscribed pillars known, namely, those at Rummindeî and Sârnâth, can be identified certainly with monuments noticed by Hiuen Tsang. A third, the Niglîva pillar, which does not occupy its original position, may or may not be the one which he mentions in connexion with the stûpa of Konâkamana. There is, however, no doubt that