cave in B.C. 50. He has long been forgotten and the hand which he uplifts
in token of the Four Verities, discovered after great agony and temptation
beneath the Tree of Wisdom, is now pointed out as the wrathful hand of the
demi-god of the Mahabharata. Once and once only in these later days has the
Buddha evinced his displeasure at the modernization of his ancient shrine.
About the year 1880 came hither a Bairagi, naked and wild, who walled off a
corner of the cave and raised a clay altar to his puny god. Sacrilege
intolerable! And the Buddha through the hand of an avaricious Koli smote
him unto death and hurled his naked corpse down hill. The titanic figure is
still worshipped by the Hindus: flowers and lighted lamps are daily offered
up to him by the ignorant Hindu priest; but he sits immutable,
inarticulate, content in the knowledge that to them that have understanding
his real message of humanitarianism speaks through the clouds of falsehood
which now enwrap his Presence.

Much might be written of the strange medley of creeds which are symbolised
in these caves. The Nagdevas with their serpent-canopies, which are relics
of a primordial Sun and Serpent worship totally foreign to pure Buddhism,
appear side by side with the Swastika or Life-symbol of the greater creed,
with the lotus and other symbols of a phallic cult, and as in the small
cistern near cave 14 with the female face representing the low-class Hindu
belief in the divinity of the smallpox. Jain images of a later school of
Buddhism, dating from the 5th or 6th century after Christ, have helped to
rob these homes of Buddhist mendicants of their original simplicity and
severity, and have rendered it almost impossible for any save the wise men
of the East to read their chequered history aright. In almost the last cave
we entered, where two standing figures on the right and left mount guard
over the well-known image of the Master, our footsteps roused a large
female rat and her young, which crawled up the silent seated figure and
took refuge on the very crown of its head. Sanctuary! So we turned aside to