impress of independent Indian architecture is distinctly
traceable.
Late discoveries have brought to light remains of
Buddhist dagobas of great antiquity in many parts of
India, and especially in Ceylon, their construction
dating as far back as three or two centuries before our
era, and showing that the sculpture of th a t early age
had a very marked character of comparative excellency,
which the Brahmins were never able to compete
with successfully. I need only mention two specimens
of the period I speak of; namely, the tope or stupa
Bharhut, about half-way between Jubbulpore and
Allahabad, discovered by Major-General Alexander
Cunningham in 1873, and the dagoba, “ Thuparame,”
Anurajapura, ninety miles north of Kandy, recently
excavated by the Government of Ceylon.
Buddhism originated in India in the sixth century
B.C., but did not attain the height of its influence until
three centuries later, and continued in full power until
the fourth or fifth century a .d . , up to which period,
and even later, pilgrims came to India as their holy
land from all parts of Asia, especially from China.
Brahminical persecution, however, gradually drove
them from the great cities, and large communities of
Buddhists retired among the hills of the west, where
they constructed cave temples, many of which were
eventually adapted to the Hindu worship. Still Buddhism
lingered on until the seventh century, when
Brahminism took up its old position as the national
religion of India, and between th a t and the eleventh
and twelfth century, the last traces of the former disappear
from the Peninsula, excepting in the diluted
form of Jainism. Arts, sciences, and literature reached
their highest development in India during the earlier
and most brilliant epoch of Buddhism. The latter is
now the prevailing religion in China, Burmah, Siam, and
Ceylon, but only in the last named has it retained its
former purity. In Thibet, as well as in Nepaul, La-
maism, an unworthy offspring of Buddhism, exists in
full force, and is the universal religion of the people.
The Punjab (Panj—nad, or five rivers) produces large
crops of grain—wheat, barley, Indian corn, and gram
(cicer arietinum), also cotton and indigo, and the
range of hills extending from the Indus to the
Hydaspes, now called the Jelum, yields the famous
rock-salt which is largely exported to Bengal.
I t is within fifty miles of Lahore that we come
upon classical ground, where Alexander the Great, in
B.C. 327, had erected altars on the banks of the
Hyphasis, the modern Sutlej, to commemorate the
extent of his conquests. In the same region, Lord