98 FOOTFALLS OF INDIAN HISTORY
were foreign in origin. In fact competent critics are wont to turn to them for the exemplification of the somewhat vague entity that may be called the indigenous impulse in Indian art. In the low carvings in relief, therefore, on the Asokan Rail at Bodh-Gaya, we are not called upon to suspect a foreign origin. We may take these frankly as we find them, as examples of the Indian art of the year 250 B.C. or thereabouts. From this point on we watch the development of Buddhistic art in Behar. Here we have the enclosure built about the sacred tree. Again we have a footprint, as at Gaya itself, where that now worshipped as the Vishnupada was almost certainly originally a Buddhistic symbol. Behar was at one time full of stupas, but the very fact that these have been defaced and treated as mounds or hills is testimony to the fact that they were probably as plain in the time of Asoka as that now at Sarnath or at Sanchi. It is true enough that at its birth Buddhism found all holiness in that plain dome-shaped cairn of earth and bricks, which sometimes did, as at Rajgir, and sometimes did not, as at Sanchi, conceal a deposit of relics. Amongst the small votive stupas which it became the fashion for pilgrims and visitors to leave at sacred shrines, there are many of this phase of development.
It was essential that they should have five parts, clearly distinguishable, and a system of philosophy grew up which connected these with the five elements — earth, air, fire, water, and ether.
