Page:Epigraphia Indica, Volume 2.djvu/14

X 'soap-stone ' casket was smashed during a voyage to England and the fragments thrown away. The crystal phial was presented to Dr. Burnell." . "The villagers of Bhattiprolu told me that they remember some railing or wall, which they described as about four feet high, surrounding the tope."

Mr. Rea found that the building had been of solid brick work throughout, and that a portion of the base of the dome and the wall of the procession-path at the south-east quadrant, were intact. From these he made out that the dome must have had a diameter of 132 feet and the base of 148 feet,—being thus about ten feet larger than the Amaravati stupa. Outside the basement, and 8 feet below the present surface, he found a brick floor about 12 feet broad, at the outer edge of which were fragments of marble,—probably of the great enclosing rail.

"I learned," he says, in his very instructive report," that'the casket had been found just above the summit of the remaining portion of the brick dome. I ascertained this point to be 15 feet above the level of the floor of the procession-path which surrounds the building. Although this casket had been found, I considered that, as the principal deposit is usually placed down in the centre near the foundation, or at the level of the procession-path, there was a great probability of there being another. After having found the centre of the circular brick-work, which, through the demolition, is not now in the middle of the mound but considerably towards the north, I saw that the bricks there had not been touched. In the centre was a narrow well, 9½ inches in diameter, filled with earth. This hole, it appears, was open when the top of the stupa was removed, and was then sounded with a rope to a depth of about 15 feet from the present surface. Around it were courses of eight bricks radiating from the centre to a diameter of 3 feet. These bricks I removed to a depth of 14 feet 6 inches.

"At that depth I came on a large, irregular, triangular slab of black stone laid on the outside of the excavated shaft. The two inner sides of the stone radiated from the centre, its outer side was curved concentric with the brick- work, and extended a foot into the wall of the shaft. It would have lain clear, had another ring of brick-work been removed, making the shaft 5 feet in diameter, but I did not expect to find more than one casket, in the centre On removing it, I found a rectangular cutting on the under surface of the stone measuring 11 inches by 8 inches and J inch deep : the length was placed east and west. Below it was another similar but thicker stone with a raised rectangular rim on its upper surface cut to fit into the hollow in the upper stone. The inner sides of this rectangle slope down into a circular cavity 5 inches deep. The