Page:The Buddhist Antiquities Of Nagarjunakonda MASI 54 Longhurst A. H..djvu/33

20 shown in Plate XVI (a), and consist of a tiny bone relic placed in a small gold reliquary which was in a second gold reliquary shaped like a miniature stūpa. The latter was put into a little round silver casket about three inches in diameter together with a few gold-leaf jasmine flowers, pearl and coral beads. The silver casket was originally placed in a small earthenware pot which was smashed to pieces when the stūpa was filled in with earth and the dome built over the relics. Unfortunately, no inscriptions were recovered from these two sites but the ordate style of both stūpas denotes that they enshrined the relics of important personages.

4 stands on rising ground in front of Monastery II and was built to contain the remains of twelve monks and the ashes of some important divine from that vihāra. From the contents discovered in these monastic stūpas it is clear that each monk was provided with the following red earthenware vessels—water-pot, food-bowl and a begging-bowl. It seems that when a monk or priest died the body was cremated and the ashes were placed in the water-pot, the mouth of which was closed by the inverted food-bowl. In this manner, standing in an upright position, twelve water-pots covered with inverted food-bowls were recovered from Stüpa 4, together with six large begging-bowls. The latter are of red pottery and double the size of the food-bowls and were placed on the floor of the chamber near the other vessels. The pots were in small groups of three or four and filled with a mixture of bone ash and fine red earth. The latter is the result of white ants making their mud nests in the chambers of the stūpa as it occurs in all tombs found in India. There was one pot however, of a different shape to the others. It is globular in form and about nine inches in height. Its mouth was closed by a little red earthenware saucer or top of which was placed an inverted food-bowl of the usual kind. The pot was filled with earth in which was found a small corroded silver casket shaped like a stūpa and two and a half inches in height. Inside this was a tiny gold reliquary in the form of a miniature stūpa three quarters of an inch in diameter. A few gold-leaf flowers, a square-cut white crystal pendant and a few decayed pearl and coral beads were found in the small silver casket (Plate XVI (6)). No inscriptions were recovered from this site, but the relics appear to represent those of some distinguished divine who once lived in the adjacent monastery. The pot containing the relics was found in a chamber all by itself, whereas the other twelve pots were in small groups in different chambers. Thus the stūpa seems to have been built to enshrine the relics of some famous divine and the ashes of his twelve principal disciples. It is a plain structure with ayaka-platforms and pillars and similar to the other monastic stūpas discovered.

5 belongs to Monastery III which is situated at the foot of Nāgārjuna's Hill and described above. Plate XV (c) shows the stūpa when first discovered and (d) of the same Plate its appearance after excavation and repairs. Like Stūpa 4, it was erected to contain the remains of monks or priests belonging to Monastery II. In this case, the water-pots and bowls were all of the usual pattern and no gold or silver reliquaries were found, so it appears to have been an ordinary monastic stūpa containing the ashes of six monks only. As these