Page:Footfalls of Indian History.djvu/72



Patna on the east to Benares on the west, stretch in the month of January fields of white poppies all abloom. In this Holy Land of the Buddhist nations blossoms to-day this flower of death. The earth where it grows was made sacred long ago by the feet of Buddha. At the site of the ancient Pataliputra, almost where Bankipore stands to-day, He entered the kingdom of Magadha. For ages they called the river crossing Gautama's Ferry, and told how on his last journey north He stood and watched the building of the first of its fortifications, foretelling the future greatness of the capital. In remote villages one constantly comes upon images of Buddha, worshipped inside or outside the temples of Brahman priests. In any field the peasant ploughing may turn up a relic or a fragment of carved stone. And under trees and bushes along the high-road one notes the three little heaps of mud standing side by side, that indicate a shrine of Jaganath the Lord of the Universe, name and symbol of Buddha himself. They have forgotten Him maybe, yet remember His memory, these simple worshippers of the Behari villages. To far distant lands, and to scriptures written in a long-