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Stephenson found one sculpture to be very interesting among the images installed in the cavity. He mentions that it had a grotesque appearance, and that the lower part was of stone and well ssculpted, which was altogether different from the upper part made of clay. He managed to convince the faqir and purchased the image for two rupees. Then on being washed and being separated from the outward covering of clay, a fragment (lower part) of beautiful ancient sculpture of the Buddha in bhumi-sparsh mudra was revealed.
It was learnt from the faqir that the image had been discovered by the zemindar while digging for bricks to build his present pukka house, at a distance of a few hundred yards. The back of the fragment was beautifully sculpted, with two lions standing in an erect position, upon two elephants. On each side of the base was cut a lion half couchant with a female figure in the centre. The stone was red fine grained sandstone, which was very hard. He found an inscription on the lowest part of the fragment which could not be deciphered by the local pundits (being in Brahmi script, which was forgotten since long).
Princep mentions that the mutilated image thus rescued by Stephenson was presented by him to the Asiatic Society. The inscription on the pedestal of the sculpture excited considerable curiosity on being exhibited in the society, since at that time no such images with inscriptions existed in the museum of the society.
This was later deciphered with the assistance of Govind Ram Shastri, the pandit of Wilson, who compared it with the Tibetan and Gya forms of the Sanskrit alphabet, and they were able to decipher the same as the Buddhist sutra “ye dhamma hetu pabbhava...” The inscription found on the image’s pedestal was found to be similar to that of another on a stone found during excavation of the site at Sarnath by Lt. Alexander Cunningham and others including Major Grant, and Captain Thorrsby.
To be continued.....