At other places they began to be worshipped as lingas, as in the case at Lauriya Nandangarh. At several other places, one hears about Pandava caves, which on closer inspection were found to be containing the statues of the Buddha and the Bodhisattvas as in Madhya Pradesh.  Most early Brahmins tried to read the script with reference to Bhim sen and failed to decipher. The genius of Princep who spent a major period of his earthly existence led to the realization of the actual spiritual might of Ashoka –the Great. If one looks back at history, one is really inspired by the ideals of Ashoka, who as a king and a ruler of an empire wider than the present geographical territory of India, actually preached and practiced non violence.

The remains at Lauriya Nandangarh are interesting and extensive. These remains consist of three rows of earthen barrows or huge conical mounds of earth, of which two of the rows lie from north to south, and the third from west to east. Most stupas at other places are built of either brick or stone, but it is here that one finds the early stupas made of mounds of earth that are still surviving. Cunningham believed these to be the early sepulchral mounds of the early kings of the country, before the spread of Buddhism, and assigned a date ranging from 600 to 1500 BC. Hiuen Tsang has mentioned that the stupas built in the time of Ashoka were either of stone or of brick, but has not mentioned about the materials of the early stupas of the times of Ajatashatru and other contemporaries of the Buddha, and has never mentioned earthen stupas. Thus Cunningham presumed the antiquity before Buddhist times for the earthen mounds, raised over the ashes of the rulers of the country, perhaps to be the greater or the more famous monarchs who had assumed the title of Chhakravarti Rajas.

To be continued...