LECTURE for the year
I
ever,
III
106
ending June 30, 1894.
wish
you
to
What, how-
note in this connection
is
modern times the Svastika is confined to India, Tibet, China and Japan, in ancient days it was well-known all over the southern and western portion of Europe and made its appearance as early as the middle of the bronze age. The systematic study of the that
in
though
archaeology of India has but just begun, and has been started by this University. It would therefore be interesting to know to pre-historic
what early period our University colleagues are able to tracr the
existence of
the Svastika
on
the prehistoric Indian antiquities.
Another symbol which is met with on the Karshapauas and later coins and to which I
would which
your attention now
invite is
supposed and wrongly
represent the stupa or cliaitya.
We
is
the sign
supposed to have got at
two specimens of this symbol, on one of which a pea -cock and on the other a dog is least
If the symbol is taken represented as standing. to be one of a stupa or chaitya, the presence of
a pea-cock or dog on its
summit
is
inexplicable.
Cunningham was the first to suggest that it was and this idea was a sign for Mount Meru, Pandit afterwards accepted by Bhagwanlal 1
Indraji.-
have
I >
elsewhere
NChr., XIII (1873), p. 188. EG., Vol.
H
expressed
I,
Ft,
I.
p. 30.
the