The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c30.72

c30.72

The centre of attraction was a great monastery and shrine specially erected upon the bank of the Ganges, where a golden image of Buddha, equal to the king in stature, was kept in a tower, 100 feet high. A similar but smaller image, 3 feet in height, was carried daily in solemn procession, escorted by the twenty rājas and a train of three hundred elephants. The canopy was borne by Harsha in person, attired as the god Sakra, while his ally, Rāja Kumāra, the most important of the princes in attendance, was clad as the god Brahmā, and had the honour of waving a white fly-whisk. The sovereign, as he moved along, scattered on every side pearls, golden flowers, and other precious substances, in honour of the ‘Three Jewels’—Buddha, the Religion, and the Order; and, having with his own hands washed the image at the altar prepared for the purpose, bore it on his shoulder to the western tower, and there offered to it thousands of silken robes, embroidered with gems. Dinner was succeeded by a public disputation of the one-sided kind already described; and in the evening the monarch returned to his 'travelling palace', a mile distant.