India revisited . cket; the peacocks break fromthe kusa grass, a storm of green, and purple, and gold;the sand-grouse, whose cry is heard before the bird isvisible in the sky, skims to the pool, where the whiteegrets and the cranes are stalking, and over which the fish-tiger hovers; the bee-bird hawks for butter-flies ; the nine sisters chatter in the thorn-bushes ;the antelopes file in graceful beauty across the plain;and, as evening falls, you hear the chakur and chakri, which live on moonbeams, and which only death canseparate, cheeping to the rising crescent; while thejackals steal out to
India revisited . cket; the peacocks break fromthe kusa grass, a storm of green, and purple, and gold;the sand-grouse, whose cry is heard before the bird isvisible in the sky, skims to the pool, where the whiteegrets and the cranes are stalking, and over which the fish-tiger hovers; the bee-bird hawks for butter-flies ; the nine sisters chatter in the thorn-bushes ;the antelopes file in graceful beauty across the plain;and, as evening falls, you hear the chakur and chakri, which live on moonbeams, and which only death canseparate, cheeping to the rising crescent; while thejackals steal out to find food, and the flying foxesunhook their leathern pinions from the neem tree, andscream as they launch themselves on the dusky air toplunder the distant village fruit-groves. Through such a country it was my happiness totrack the passage of Sakya-Muni step by step, as hewandered from his palace near the lakes at Bustitowards the Ganges Valley and the hills surroundingGya. After his attainment of the Buddhahood,. THE LAND OF THE LIGHT OP ASIA. 227 almost the first spot in which he declared the Law was the Deer Park, near Benares, called in theancient writings Isipatan. This may be very easilyvisited from Benares. The road leads for three or fourmiles out of the cantonments, past the old residenceof Warren Hastings, and over the river Barna, underavenues of fig trees and bamboos, until a sudden turnbrings you—after a further ride of a mile and a half—to a well-cultivated plain, where two prominentobjects rise above the face of the country. One is anabrupt little hill, topped by a square building, thehill being a mass of ruined brickwork, and the turreta comparatively modern erection. But within sightof it, elevated above the trees and bamboo-clumpsthrough which the road approaches, come abruptlyinto view the massive outlines of a Buddhist Stupa,resembling no other kind of monument in the soars aloft, 80 or 90 feet high, shaped, in itspresent broken outlines, like
Size: 1211px × 2063px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidcu31924022984136, bookpubl
