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144 ASOKA MAURYA which he employed, and which piled up the stones, reared the walls and gates, and executed the elegant carving and inlaid sculpture work in a way which no human hands of this world could accomplish." These stately buildings have all vanished, and their remains lie buried for the most part beyond hope of recovery deep below the silt of the Ganges and Son Rivers, overlaid by the East Indian railway, the city of Patna, and the civil station of Bankipur. Slight and desultory excavations have revealed enough to at- test the substantial truth of the pilgrim's enthusiastic description, and I have myself seen two huge and finely carved sandstone capitals one with the acanthus-leaf ornament dug. up near Bankipur. The numerous and magnificent monasteries founded by Asoka have shared the fate of his palaces, and are ruined beyond recognition. The only buildings of the Asokan period which have escaped destruction and remain in a state of tolerable preservation are those forming the celebrated group of stupas, or cupolas, at and near Sanchi, in Central India, not very far from Ujjain, where Asoka held court as viceroy of the west before his accession to the throne. The elaborately carved gateways of the railing round the principal mon- ument, which have been so often described and figured, may have been constructed to the order of the great Maurya, and are certainly not much later than his time. The massive monolithic sandstone pillars, inscribed and uninscribed, which Asoka erected in large num- bers throughout the home provinces of the empire,