or table—the Vajrasana, or Diamond Throne, the reputed center of the universe, the jewel that came up from the center of the earth to mark where Buddha sat when he attained perfect wisdom—Bodhi Manda, the Veranda of Knowledge. Asoka erected a small brick temple, made pilgrimages to every spot connected with the life of Buddha, and marked them by stupas, or inscribed columns. He summoned the Great Council, when the doctrines were first put in writing in the square Pali characters of his day; he sent missionaries to all parts of the world, even despatching his own son as evangelist to Ceylon, and making his daughter bearer of the cutting of the Sacred Bo-tree sent to Anuradhpura,
Asoka's wife became jealous of the sacred tree, and tried vainly to destroy it; persecuting rajas cut it down and filled the roots with fire; but it sprang always to the same stature again. The Chinese pilgrims saw and described it; the first English travelers found it green and vigorous, and it was perpetuated, of course, like its congener at Anuradhpura, by the dropping of a seed in the fork or hollow of the dying trunk. The archæologists found in 1861 that the tree was growing forty-five feet above the original level of the court, traces of sixteen successive cement platforms showing where that many trees had mounted upon the roots of preceding trees. That venerable pipul, with many dead branches and stumps, was blown over in 1876, and the stripling Bo-tree flourishing in its mold was carefully replanted at the level of the earliest tree, and the
