Page:Footfalls of Indian History.djvu/63

44 FOOTFALLS OF INDIAN HISTORY seen. The outside is half concealed by shrubs and creepers. But even now the mortice-holes remain that show where the carved wooden orna- ments were once attached. And even now as we stand at the entrance we see in the distance, in the middle of the city, the tower that Fa Hian noted as still intact and visible in the year A.D. 404, crowning a small stupa or well to the east of the palace.

This cave then was the cathedral of Old Rajgir. Here Buddha must have rested or meditated or taught ; and there must, suggested some member of our party, have been a roadway connecting it directly with the palace. Acting on this clue, we proceeded to brush aside the wild growths and explore the line between the two. Outside the cave we found a level floor of ancient asphalt, a sort of Venetian Plaza de San Marco as it were. This was evidently the town square. We read a reference in one of the old Chinese suttas of a certain place in Rajgir — as the place where the peacocks were fed. "'The place where the pea- cocks were fed " ; how our minds had lingered over the words when we first read them ! And now here we stand. For undoubtedly just as the pigeons are fed outside St. Paul's, so on this asphalt plaza, before the cathedral entrance in an Eastern city, it fitted the royal dignity and bounty that peacocks should be daily given grain.

The, asphalt runs down to the river and across it. For the water still flows under the ancient