Page:Report of a Tour Through the Bengal Provinces of Patna, Gaya, Mongir and Bhagalpur; The Santal Parganas, Manbhum, Singhbhum and Birbhum; Bankura, Raniganj, Bardwan and Hughli in 1872-73.djvu/40

16 was a Drona measure, and this is doubtless the correct version of the legend. Be this as it may, a stûpa was erected over it by a private individual, and that individual a Brahman. What the Drona measure was exactly, it is now difficult to ascertain, but that it certainly was a very small measure can be seen at once from the Mahábhárata (Adi Parva, 11th section, entitled Chaitraratha, 2nd chapter, 4th couplet), in which the birth of Drona, the son of Bhâradwaja, is detailed. Decency compels me not to insert the passage.

I pause a moment to remark that from this account it appears clear that certainly at this period no great ill-feeling appears to have existed between Brahmans and Buddhists; a great deal has been said regarding the ill-feeling between them; and Brahmans are said to have burned the temples and hunted the Buddhist priests with malignant hatred, and the discovery of charred remains in the course of excavations at Sârnâth has without due consideration been taken as evidence that the work of destruction was perpetrated by Brahmans. But I desire to point out that the very fact of victuals, ready-dressed, and uneaten, found in the Sârnâth ruins, is the strongest proof that the attack on the monasteries was most sudden, and I submit that an attack of such a sudden nature could not have been planned by the Brahmans of the place. Buddhist monasteries are well known to contain usually several hundreds of monks, and such a monastery as that at Sârnâth was least likely to have the fewest number of occupants. To attack and burn it successfully would need a large force well armed, and it would be no easy task for a mob, suddenly roused as in popular tumults, to attack and sack the great monastery. We must therefore look to other agents for the destruction of those monasteries. Those agents are not difficult to ascertain.

I quote Elliot’s India, Vol. II, page 113, describing the exploits of Ahmad Nialtigin, General of Masaúd; the author of the Târikha Subuktigin says—