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of the family of Sikya—that of Buddha—who when travelling in Udayana-—the Kamboja of the Hindus, lying northward from Peshawar—fell in love with a serpent king’s. daughter. He was eventually married to her, and by the advice and with the assistance of his father-in-law, killed the king of the country and obtained the sovereignty. Though his wife- had obtained and was confirmed in the possession of a human body, a nine-headed snake occasionally appeared at the back of her neck, which on a certain occasion her husband cut off at a single blow while she was asleep. The result was blindness, of which she was afterwards cured by Sakya- muni himself, and her son Uttarasena was present at the distribution of his relics at Kuéinagara, where the great ascetic obtained Nirvina.t An almost equally curious legend is told of a Buddhist priest (Bhikshu) who became a serpent, because he -had killed the tree Elpatra, and resided in a beautiful lake or spring near Takshasili (Taxila). In our traveller’s day when the people of the country wanted fine weather or rain, they: went to the spring accompanied by a priest (Sramana) “and snapping their fingers, invoke the dragon, and immediately “ obtain their wishes.”§ In these legends. the chief characteristic of the Serpents throughout the East in all ages seems to have been their power over the wind and rain, which they exert for either good or evil as their disposition prompts.|| : A curious confirmation of the prevalence of-Nagas in the north-west of India - is obtained from the Buddhist account of the proceedings consequent on the Third * Hiouen-Thsang, IT. 180. t Voyage de Hiouen-Thsang, I. 168. t Hiouen-Thsang, IT. 14]. § Iliouen-Thsang, II. 152. General Cunningham visited this spring at Hassan Abdul in 1863, and found it still reverenced. Other legends are told at pp. 49, 99, 133, &e. || Lbis power over the weather, which is one of the leading characteristics of Nagas, has led to their being confounded with the Vedic Ahi. In their origin and purpose I believe the two to have been perfectly distinct, but in the process of time the one legend borrowed from the other till the two have, become so mixed up together that it will now be extremely difficult to separate them again. My own impression is that the Vedic myth is an alaptation of a local superstition ; borrowed in fact from the Sopranos Ene mboneioes among whom the Aryans were settled, CASHMERE. Aq Convocation held B.c. 253. Missionaries were ther sent to all the neighbouring countries. Among others Majjhantiko was dispatehed to Kashmira and Gandhara.* A Naga king of that country, named Aravadlo, endowed with supernatural powers, by causing a furious deluge to descend was submerging all. the ripened crops in Kashmira and Gandhira. The Nagas and their king tried every means to terrify the missionary, but, were subdued by his calmness and address; “whereupon the Théro e. propounded his doctrines, and the Naga king attained the salvation and state of © piety in that faith.’ In like manner “in the Himawanta (Himalaya) regions, 84,000 “ Nagas were converted, and the Naga king placing the Théro on a gem-set throne _ * respectfully stood by fanning him. On that day the inhabitants of Kashmira and “ Gandhira, who had come with offerings to appease the wrath of the Naga king, “ bowing down to the Théro (instead.of the Naga king) stood reverentially by his “* side,” &e. These extracts from the Mahawanso,{ depict faithfully the Buddhist belief on the subject two centuries before Hiouen-Thsang’s time, though not from personal observation. The account is further interesting, because these in the north-west were the only Nagas to whom missionaries were sent by Asoka. Either it was that the others had bor converted before, or that Cashmere and the mountain counties east and west of it, were the most prominent seats of the faith. These accounts by native authoritics are fully confirmed by such scanty notices as -we glean from classical authorities ; Onesicritus tells us that two ambassadors sent | to the king of Cashmere by Alexander, brought back news that the king of the country cherished. two large serpents of fabulous dimensions.{ Maximinius of Tyre tells us, that when Alexander entered India, Taxilus (King of Taxila) showed him a serpent of enormous size which he. nourished with great care and revered as the image of the god whom the Greek writers, from the similitude of his abbots called Dionysus or Bacchus. § The latest authority we have, is that of Abulfazl, who tells us that in Pv reign. of Akbar (1556—1605) there were in Cashmere 45 places dedicated to the worship of Siva, 64 to Vishnu, 3 to Brahma, and 22 to Durgd, but there were 700 places in the _ valley where there were carved images of snakes which the inhabitants worshipped. || - All this is fully confirmed by the architecture of the valley; with very few exceptions, all the sncient temples of Cashmere seem to have been devoted to Serpent Worship. They stand in square courts which were capable of being flooded and were crossed by light bridges of stone, some of which still remain. Even at the present day some of these temples are unapproachable without wading, in con- sequence’ of the water which surrounds them, and all might be rendered so by a’ slight repair to their waterworks. There are, of course, no images in the sanctuaries which long prevented antiquaries from perceiving the form of faith to which they were’ dedicated. But where the deity is a living god and mortal, when he and his worshippers pay the debt of nature, they leave no material trace to recall the memory of theit past existence. * Tn this wide sense Gandhira seems to include all the countries westward of the Indus as far as Candahar. Relics of this missionary, as we shall pr esently sce, were deposited in No. 3 Tope at Sanchi. + Turnour, Translation, p.e/2 and 73. ; ‘§ Maxim. Tyr. Diss. XIIT. ed. Lip. 140. } Strabo, XV. 698. | Ayeen Akbaree, Gladwin’s Translation, p. 187. a INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. we G CAMBODIA. There is another country on the other side of the Bay of Bengal the study of whose antiquities is nearly as important to the elucidation of Serpent Worship in _India, as those of Cashmere, though im a totally different sense. In the last-named country we look for the “incunabula” of the faith, in Cambodia for its fullest known development. The ruined cities of Cambodia have, however, been only so. recently discovered, and are yet so little known, that it is extremely difficult to feel sure on many points connected with their history or purposés.* Whatever doubt may, however, exist on other points, it seems certain that the great Temple of Nakhon Vat was wholly dedicated to Serpent Worship. Every angle of every roof is adorned with a grim'seven-headed serpent, with a magnificent trest of what is apparently intended for feathers, and every cornice of every entablature is adorned with a continuous vow of these seven-headed deities, but without crests. The former may be counted by hundreds, the latter by thousands. But it is not only these; every balustrade, every ridge, almost every feature of the building bears the same impress. The arrangements too of the temple ‘are such as are suitable for Serpent Worship, and that. only. There is no image in the sanctuary, and no worship represented in the -bas-reliefs. All the courts are tanks to contain water, and everything recalls the temples of Cashmere, but with ten-fold magnificence. Neither in India, nor so far as is known is there any other temple, displaying the same amount of patient labour devoted to the elaboration of appropriate ornament over so extended a surface ‘as in this newly-discovered temple. It is 600 feet square at base, and rises to a height of 180 feet in the centre, while every part is covered with carvings in stone, generally beautiful in design, - and always admirably adapted to their situation, and to tell the story they were meant to convey. The startling thing to us is, that simultaneously with the erection of the great cathedrals: of York, Amiens, or Cologne, a larger and more magnificent temple than either of them was being erected in another part of the globe, in a style and dedicated to a religion of which the western builders knew nothing. What seems equally strange is that all memory of the people, and all knowledge of their buildings, should have so completely passed away that - till within the last ten years no one in Europe suspected their existence. ‘We shall not know whether the other temples in the city of Nakhon Thom are equally dedicated to Serpent Worship till some one visits them who has some previous knowledge of the subject. They are so completely overgrown with jungle that” photography will hardly help us in this instance. They were more extensive, and seem to have been as elaborately ornamented as the one temple of which we athe * The temples were first discovered by M. Mouhot, a French naturalist, in 1858-60, but he did not pretend to any knowledge of their history. They were afterwards visited by Dr. Bastian, who has written voluminously regarding them, but either it is that he knows nothing about. them, or for some reason he is afraid to commit himself ‘to any.statements regarding them. . The greatest amount of information has been obtained from the photographs of Mr. J. Thomson, and his personal communications. From these sources a tolerably connected account is condensed in my History of Architecture (II. p. 713, et seq.), to which the reader is referred. Since it was published, Messrs. Edmiston and Douglas, of Edinburgh,'‘have published a selection of Mr. Thomson’s photographs, with explanatory text taken principally, with my consent and collaberation, from my work above referred to.