The excavations at Peshawar conducted by Dr. D. B. Spooner,
Superintendent of the Frontier Circle of the Indian Archaeological Survey, have had extraordinarily interesting results. We learn from a statement in the Times of Tuesday that Dr. Spooner has discovered what are almost certainly some of the bones of Gautaana Buddha. The excavations originated in the suggestions of the French archaeologist, M. Foucher, a few years ago. It has long been held estab- lished that on the death of Gautama his body was burned, and the relics were distributed among several claimants. Tumuli were erected over them in various placee. Among the monuments mentioned by Hieun Tsang and other Chinese pilgrims, by far the most important was the great pagoda of the Kushan Emperor, Yanishka. But all traces of this shrine were lost after the invasions of Mahraud of Ghazni. Fortunately Hieun Tsang was always careful in recording the exact positions of the holy places he menthmed, and by a brilliant piecing together of evidence M. Foucher concluded that the lost pagoda was under two mounds in the fields east of Peshawar City. After about a year and a half of work Dr. Spooner has found the pagoda. Inside it is a relic-chamber containing, among other things, a reliquary of rock crystal. The contents of this reliquary are three fragments of bone. When one remembers the peculiar devotion excited by the so-called tooth of Gautama at Kandy, one cannot be wrong in supposing that Dr. Spooner's discovery will excite a profound emotion among the Buddhists in the Indian Empire, most of whom are natives of Burma and Ceylon.
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