Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/226

224 2. THE NIGLÎVA PILLAR INSCRIPTION ASOKA'S VISIT TO THE STÛPA OF KONÂKAMANA (Facsimile and transcript, Ep. Ind., v. pp. 4–6.) 'His Sacred and Gracious Majesty the King. when he had been consecrated fourteen years, enlarged for the second time the stûpa of Buddha Konâkamana; and, when he had been consecrated [twenty years], having come in person, did reverence, and erected [a stone pillar].' Comment

This imperfect inscription evidently must be assigned to the same year as the Rummindêî inscription, and must mark another stage in the imperial 'pious tour.' It seems to have been drafted by the author of its companion record. It is incised on a broken pillar now lying on the bank of an artificial lake about thirteen miles in a north-westerly direction from Rummindêî. I have visited the spot. The pillar, which once stood beside the stûpa of Konâkamana, has been moved a few miles from its original position, which is not known exactly. Führer's pretended identification is forgery. He published many falsehoods about the locality. On the probable sites of the towns and stupas of the 'previous Buddhas,' Konâkamana and Krakuchanda, see my discussion in the Prefatory Note to Mukhurji's Report on the Antiquities in the Tarai, Nepâl, Calcutta, 1901, p. 16.

The inscription, brief and mutilated though it is, has much importance for the history of Buddhism. It proves the early existence of the cult of the 'previous Buddhas' and the fact of Asoka's persistent devotion to them as well as to Gautama Buddha. It may be that the cult of the 'previous Buddhas' and, consequently, Buddhism itself originated in the sub-Himalayan tract now called the Nepalese Tarâi centuries before the time of Gautama Buddha. The subject deserves investigation.