With honour also, for he made many treaties with foreign powers. One gives us a quaint picture of the time. The Buddhist king of Ceylon sent two monks, one the king's brother, to visit the monastery which pious King Asôka of olden days had built by the sacred Bo tree at Bodh-Gya. Now, India being at this time Brahmanical, the worthy brothers met with scant courtesy, and on return complained that they had literally found no place at the holy shrine wherein to lay their heads. The Buddhist king, therefore, anxious to redress this anomaly, despatched an embassy to Samûdra-gupta, asking leave to found a rest-house for the use of pious pilgrims, and sent with it rich jewels and gifts galore. These were duly accepted by the Hindoo as tribute, and gracious permission given. Whereupon the decision to build a special monastery close to the sacred tree was duly engraved on a copper plate, and, in due time, carried out by the erection of what was described two centuries later by the Chinese pilgrim, Hiuen T'sang (to whose literary labours we of to-day owe nearly all our knowledge of India in these far ages), as having three stories, six halls, three towers, and accommodation for a thousand monks, "on which the utmost skill of the artist has been employed; the ornamentation is in the richest colours, and the statue of Buddha is cast of gold and silver, decorated with gems and precious stones." Natheless this was the golden age of the Hindoo, not of the Buddhist, and, imitating Push[^y]a-mitra, who overset the Buddhist Maurya dynasty, Samûdra-gupta determined to proclaim his supremacy by the ancient Horse sacrifice. So once more the doomed charger, followed by an army, set out on its wanderings for a year. This we know by reason of a few rare coins bearing the effigy of the victim standing before the altar, encircled by an explanatory legend, which have survived time, to be discovered of late years. There is also a rudely-carven stone horse now standing at the door of the Museum in Lucknow, which some archæologists label as belonging to Samûdra-gupta's great sacrifice.