It is only recently that our rapidly-increasing knowledge has enabled us to appreciate the important part which Rails play in the history of Buddhist architecture. The rail of the great Tope at Sanchi has, it is true, been long known; but it is the plainest of those yet discovered, and without the inscriptions which are found on it, and the gateways that were subsequently added to it, presents few features to interest any one. There is a second rail at Sanchi which is more ornamented and more interesting, but it has not yet been published in such a manner as to render its features or its history intelligible. The same is at least partially true of the great rail at Buddh Gaya, though it is one of the oldest and finest of its kind. When, however, the Amravati sculptures were brought to light and pieced together,[112] it was perceived that the rail might, and in that instance did, become one of the most elaborate and ornamental features of the style. Since then General Cunningham has found two or three buried rails at Muttra, and his crowning discovery of the great rail at Bharhut, has made it clear that this was the feature on which the early Buddhist architects lavished all the resources of their art, and from the study of which we may consequently expect to learn most. The two oldest rails of which we have any knowledge in India are those at Buddh Gaya and that recently discovered at Bharhut. The former, General Cunningham thinks, cannot be of much later date than Asoka.[113] The latter, in his ‘Memorandum,’[114] he ascribes to the age of that monarch. These determinations he founds principally on the form of the characters used in the inscriptions on them, which certainly are nearly identical with those used on the lâts. From them, and the details of the sculptures, it is quite evident they cannot be far removed in age from the dates so assigned to them. On the whole, however, I am inclined to believe that the Buddh Gaya rail was really erected by Asoka, or during his reign. At all events, we know from the fifteenth chapter of the ‘Mahawanso’ that even if he did not worship this tree, he certainly reverenced it to such an extent that when he sent his daughter Sangamitta to aid in the conversion of Ceylon to the true faith, he cut off and entrusted her with a branch of this tree planted in a golden vessel. That tree was replanted with infinite ceremony at Anuradhapura, and it, or its lineal descendant, remains the principal _numen_ of the island to this day. Hiouen Thsang tells us that Asoka built a small vihara to the east of the tree on the spot where the present temple stands;[115] and nothing is consequently more probable than he should have added this rail, which is concentric with his vihara, but not with the tree.