..续本文上一页iles distant from Sanchi.

　　On sinking a shaft in the center of the stupa on Sanchi Hill, Cunningham came upon a large stone slab, upwards of five feet in length, lying in a direction from north to south. Beneath the slab were found two boxes of gray sandstone, each with a brief inscription in Brahmi characters on the lid. The box to the south was inscribed "Sariputtasa" "(Relics) of Sariputta," while that to the north bore the legend "Maha-Mogalanasa." "(Relics) of Maha Moggallana."

　　The southernmost box contained a large flat casket of white steatite, rather more than six inches broad and three inches in height. The surface was hard and polished and the box, which had been turned on a lathe, was a beautiful piece of workmanship. Around this casket were some fragments of sandalwood believed to have been from the funeral pyre, while inside it, besides the Relic, various precious stones were found. This casket contained a single bone relic of the Venerable Sariputta, not quite one inch in length.

　　The stone box to the north enclosed another steatite casket, similar to that of Sariputta but slightly smaller and with a softer surface. Inside it were two bone relics of the Venerable Maha Moggallana, the larger of them being something less than half an inch in length.

　　Each of the two steatite caskets had a single ink letter inscribed on the inner surface of the lid: "Sa" for Sariputta on the southern and "Ma" for Maha Moggallana on that to the north. In Cunningham”s words, "Sariputta and Maha Moggallana were the principal followers of the Buddha, and were usually styled his right and left hand disciples. Their ashes thus preserved after death the same positions to the right and left of Buddha which they had themselves occupied in life."[54] This is explained by the fact that the Buddha customarily sat facing east.

　　In the stupa at Satadhara, one of a group which Cunningham noted was called locally "Buddha Bhita" or "Buddha Monuments," he discovered two caskets of pale mottled steatite. These were inscribed, like those at Sanchi, "Sariputtasa" and "Maha Mogallanasa" respectively. This stupa showed signs of having been violated by robbers, but the bone relics had been left undistrubed. Cunningham, who is a very capable archaeologist, has left a detailed account of everything his excavations brought to light in these and other stupas, and it is thanks to him that the authenticity of the relics is established beyond all doubt.

　　The relics from both stupas were removed to England and placed in the Victoria and Albert Museum, but some discrepancies between Cunningham”s description of the caskets and the actual boxes in which the relics were deposited gives reason to believe that he, or someone else, transferred the relics from Sanchi to the caskets discovered at Satadhara, a, nd what became of the Sanchi steatite caskets is not known for certain.

　　The Sacred Relics were preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum until 1939, when the Maha Bodhi Society approached the British government with a request that they be returned to India. The request was at once granted, but owing to the outbreak of the second World War in that year, the actual transfer was delayed for reasons of safety until Feb 24th, 1947. On that date they were handed over to the representatives of the Maha Bodhi Society at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and so began their journey back to the land of their origin.

　　Before being restored to India, however, the relics were taken to Sri Lanka, where they were received with great honor and amid general rejoicing. For two and a half months in 1947, they were displayed for public worship at the Colombo Museum, where it has been estimated that well over two million people paid homage to them. It is said that not only Buddhists but Hin…

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