Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/87

Rh was defended by a massive timber palisade, pierced by sixty-four gates, crowned by five hundred and seventy towers, and protected externally by a broad, deep moat filled from the waters of the Sôn. Fragments of the palisade have been found at several places in the course of casual excavations. Asoka improved the defences by building an outer masonry wall, and beautified the city with so many richly decorated stone buildings that they seemed to after ages to be the work of the genii and beyond the power of human skill. I have myself seen two magnificent sandstone capitals dug up, one close to the railway and the other in a potato-field, which must have belonged to stately edifices of large size. Unfortunately, the depth of the overlying silt, often reaching twenty feet, and the existence of numerous modern buildings make excavation exceptionally difficult.

The royal palace, or one of the palaces, seems to have occupied the site now covered by the village and fields of Kumrâhâr, to the south of the railway, and the partial excavations carried out there by Dr. Spooner are sufficient to prove that remains exist suggestive of extremely puzzling problems. Further systematic exploration may reveal startling discoveries. I believe that it would be possible to identify many of the sites of the monuments at and near Pâtaliputra mentioned by the Chinese pilgrims, if a thorough survey were made by an adequate staff working with suitable appliances under skilled supervision, but the results of the praiseworthy efforts hitherto made excite rather than