Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/352

 308 THE KEIGN OF HARSHA by doing honour to all the principal objects of popular worship in turn. But, while toleration and concord were the rule, exceptions occurred. The King of Central Bengal, Sasanka, who has been mentioned as the treacherous murderer of Harsha's brother, and who was probably a scion of the Gupta dynasty, was a worshipper of Siva, and hated Buddhism, which he did his best to des- troy. He dug up and burned the holy Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya, on which, according to legend, Asoka had lav- ished inordinate devo- tion; he broke the stone marked with the foot- prints of Buddha at From the Buddhist Stupa at Sanchi. Pataliputra; and he destroyed the convents, and scattered the monks, carry- ing his persecutions to the foot of the Nepalese hills. These events must have happened about 600 A. D. The Bodhi tree was replanted after a short time by Purna- varman, King of Magadha, who is described as being the last descendant of Asoka, and as such was specially bound to honour the object venerated by his great ancestor. Harsha himself sometimes offended against the THE SACRED BO-TREE.