DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.635#0067
54 BENARES, THE SACRED CITY
latter answered: "There is a hind whose turn has
come to die, but she carries a little one yet unborn.
I cannot permit this wrong. I am come to offer
myself in her place."
The raja, deeply touched, replied: "I am a deer
in human form, you are a man in the shape of a deer ".
Thereupon he ordered that the slaughter of the deer
should immediately cease, and that the forest where
they lived should always be reserved for their protec-
tion. The name of Sarnath is said to be derived from
Saranga-nath, " Lord of the Deer ", one of the names
of Buddha.
Until the recent remarkable discoveries were made,
the chief interest of Sarnath was centred in the great
ruined stupa, no feet high, known by the name of
Dhamek, which General Cunningham derives from the
Sanskrit, Dharma-desaka, or "preacher of the law".
It was the last of the memorials built by the Buddhists
within the enclosure of the Deer-park, for the rich
carving of the stone-base was interrupted, probably
by the first Muhammadan invasion at the beginning
of the eleventh century, and never completed.
About a mile to the south of the great stupa of
Dhamek is a mass of ruined brickwork, over seventy
feet high, surrounded by an octagonal tower built by
Humayun, the Mogul emperor, in the first half of
the sixteenth century. The excavations now being
made below the tower are uncovering the remains of
the Buddhist stupa upon which it is built. It is
believed to be the one described by Hiuen Thsang
in this neighbourhood as 300 feet in height, and
sparkling with the rarest and most precious materials.
Amidst all these ruined memorials of the Deer-park,
latter answered: "There is a hind whose turn has
come to die, but she carries a little one yet unborn.
I cannot permit this wrong. I am come to offer
myself in her place."
The raja, deeply touched, replied: "I am a deer
in human form, you are a man in the shape of a deer ".
Thereupon he ordered that the slaughter of the deer
should immediately cease, and that the forest where
they lived should always be reserved for their protec-
tion. The name of Sarnath is said to be derived from
Saranga-nath, " Lord of the Deer ", one of the names
of Buddha.
Until the recent remarkable discoveries were made,
the chief interest of Sarnath was centred in the great
ruined stupa, no feet high, known by the name of
Dhamek, which General Cunningham derives from the
Sanskrit, Dharma-desaka, or "preacher of the law".
It was the last of the memorials built by the Buddhists
within the enclosure of the Deer-park, for the rich
carving of the stone-base was interrupted, probably
by the first Muhammadan invasion at the beginning
of the eleventh century, and never completed.
About a mile to the south of the great stupa of
Dhamek is a mass of ruined brickwork, over seventy
feet high, surrounded by an octagonal tower built by
Humayun, the Mogul emperor, in the first half of
the sixteenth century. The excavations now being
made below the tower are uncovering the remains of
the Buddhist stupa upon which it is built. It is
believed to be the one described by Hiuen Thsang
in this neighbourhood as 300 feet in height, and
sparkling with the rarest and most precious materials.
Amidst all these ruined memorials of the Deer-park,