Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/355

 A GKEAT RELIGIOUS CEKEMONY 311 India, who was connected with him by marriage, and eighteen other tributary rajas, as well as by four thou- sand learned Buddhist monks, including a thousand from the Nalanda monastery in Bihar, and some three thousand Jains and orthodox Brahmans. The centre of attraction was a great monastery and shrine specially erected upon the bank of the Ganges, where a golden image of Buddha, equal to the king in stature, was kept in a tower a hundred feet high. A similar but smaller image, three feet in height, was carried daily in solemn procession, escorted by the twenty rajas and a train of three hundred elephants. The canopy was borne by Harsha in person, attired as the god Sakra, while his vassal, Raja Kumara, the most important of the princes in attendance, was clad as the god Brahma, and had the honour of waving a white fly-whisk. The sovereign, as he moved along, scattered on every side pearls, golden flowers, and other precious substances, in honour of the "Three Jewels," -Buddha, the Religion, and the Order, and having with his own hands washed the image at the altar prepared for the purpose, bore it on his shoulder to the western tower, and there offered to it thousands of silken robes em- broidered with gems. Dinner was succeeded by a public disputation of the one-sided kind already described, and in the evening the monarch returned to his " trav- elling palace," a mile distant. These ceremonies, which lasted for many days, were terminated by startling incidents. The temporary mon- astery, which had been erected at vast cost, suddenly