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Rh the temple court had gone too far for any interference to avail. The Burmese had demolished gateways, pavilions, and monuments, leveled ruin-heaps, swept away terraces and votive stupas, used carved stones for foundations or minor constructions; or, casting them recklessly on different rubbish-heaps, made it impossible to identify what Hiouen Thsang had so carefully described.

In 1879 General Cunningham, chief of the Archæological Survey, cleared out the entire temple court of the sand and rubbish of ages, completely restored the temple within and without, and rebuilt the portico over the east entrance door and the four corner pavilions. A miniature stone temple found in excavating, and repeated in bas-reliefs and Buddhist sculptures everywhere from Amraoti to Gandhara, and at many places in Burma, gave the model for the restorations. Every measurement now corresponds precisely to the Chinese priest's account, and the temple lacks only the hundreds of gilded images in the tiers of niches that mount to the gilded amalika at the summit. The temple stands exactly over the site of Asoka's temple, and the original floor and altar are uncovered. A ball of clay in an altar niche contained a rich treasure—bits of gold leaf and beaten gold in the form of flowers and stars, pearls, rough sapphires and rubies, bits of beryl, jade, agate, and crystal. Even the plaster of this altar was composed of pounded coral, pearl, ivory, and precious stones mixed with lime. A similar treasure was found in a vase beneath the image niched in the outer temple wall; and all these