The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c5.s2.7

c5.s2.7

We can scarcely believe that the reader will refuse to grant us this small postulate. Can he be so ignorant of the outer world that he does not know the universal empire of the mania, innocent in itself, for souvenirs of travels? The innumerable manufacturers and shopkeepers who everywhere live by it would quickly demonstrate it to him. Has he never in the course of his migrations, whatever may have been the object or the cause of them, bought curios, collected photographs, or sent away picture post-cards? These are only the latest modes and a profane extension of an immemorial and sacred custom. If he doubts this, let him lean, for example, over one of the cases at the Cluny Museum (¹) which contain the emblematic metal insignia of all the great pilgrimages of the Middle Ages, as they have been fished out of the Seine in Paris. Mediæval India has also left by hundreds evidences of this custom. Most frequently they are simple clay balls, moulded or stamped with a seal, and without doubt within the reach of all pockets, which served at the same time as *memento* and as *ex-voto*. They are to be picked up nowadays on all Buddhist sites, even