The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.s1.269

v2.c17.s1.269

And if the *cakra* be accepted as Buddhist, the other figures may, likewise, be assumed to be so. **[126]** The researches of General Cunningham have, however, obviated the necessity of any assumption. The most prominent symbol on the Sāñchi gateway is a form which, divested of its ornamental flourishes, may be resolved into the five ancient Pali letters *y, r, l, v, n.* According to the *Pūjā Khaṇḍa* of the Nepalese Buddhists, the first of these letters is the *vīja* or seed, that is, the source of air, and the Hindu Tantras accept it to be the same. The second letter stands for the *vīja* of fire, i. e. *agni* both in the Buddhist and the Hindu Tantras. The third, similarly, is the representative of water. The fourth of the earth and the fifth of ether. *Pūjā Khaṇḍa* adds a sixth, *s*, which, it says, is the representative of the mount Sumeru, which in effect is the same with the opinion of a Tantra quoted in Raja Sir Radhakanta Deva’s *Śabdakalpadruma*, in which it is described to be the Vīja of the earth (*jagadvīja*). Putting these letters together, in the form of a monogram, General Cunningham arrives at the figure shown in the woodcut No. 16.