Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 S E C O N D M O O N 06of them spread through several of the small trees, oblivious of the visitors,with their long tails hanging down from the branches, curledslightly at the end. They also came across the walls and roofs of thevihara, grey and long-limbed, with their tails now held high, their blackfaces on the lookout for bits of food to make off with.I imagined that the gardens at Kushinagar must have been laid out bythe British. The trees looked about the right age, and I knew they haddone the excavating. When the British first came to India, there wereaccounts of the great Buddhist shrines but no knowledge of where theywere. Among the new rulers were people who were fascinated with allthe physical remains of India’s past. Unlike the Indians, the VictorianBritish were a people interested in material history: the British Museumis crowded today with the physical relics of other cultures.The start of archaeology in India was led by one man, Sir AlexanderCunningham. He had come to India as a second lieutenant in 1833 at theage of twenty-one and went on to become an administrator, a surveyor,and an engineer. He distinguished himself at all these occupations, butwhat he is known for today is the uncovering of India’s past. As he travelledabout northern India on his other work, he would visit the thousandsof forts, temples, and other ancient remains that dotted thelandscape. He surveyed many of them, learned to decipher the ancientscripts, and built up a knowledge of the architecture of the different agesof India. When he retired from the army in 1861 he was made the firstdirector general of the Indian Archaeological Survey.Despite being a very committed Christian with a poor opinion ofHinduism and Islam, he developed a respect for the Buddhist teachingsand their contribution to India’s history. When he took charge of theArchaeological Survey he set about looking for the ancient Buddhistsites and was personally responsible for finding many of them. It wassomeone else who first suggested that the name of the town of Kasiamight be derived from Kusinara, but it was Cunningham who camehere in his first year as director general to inspect the sites, and it was9 0