p. 547

            DEARS SIR,-I should  like to address  a few words
        to you, for the consideration  of the Members of your
        Society, as to the meaning  of the emblems, found (in
        pl. xxxiv.  Tree and Serpent Worship, 1st ed.) in the
        hand of the Prince there represented.  Mr.  Fergusson
        was quite it a loss to explain  the meaning  of these
        emblems (p.133, o.c.).

            I think the two figures  on the plate named refer
        to the young Prince Siddartha going out to the joust,
        of which  we have such ample  record  in the Buddhist
        legends.

            This appears  to be proved  by the figure  of the
        elephant  in the first group.  We read that "when the
        young Prince  was hardly  grown up, the Licchavis  of
        Vaisali offered him an elephant of exceptional beauty
        ... which they  led to Kapilavastu, and covered  with
        jewels," etc.  (Rockhill, "Life  of  the  Buddha," p.
        19).

            This is the elephant  that Devadatta  killed, and
        Nanda pulled on one side, and the young Prince raised
        and hurled over the walls, into the elephant-ditch.

            I think this and the whole entourage of the scene
        shows  that the design  of the sculptor, or donor  of
        the gateway, was to represent  the exit of the Prince
        from  the Gate  of Kapilavastu  on  his  way  to the
        games about to be held between the Sakya youths.

            What  then  is the  emblem  in the  hands  of the
        Prince?

                                p. 548

        Mr. Fergusson compares it to the form of a dumb-bell,
        "two balls joined together like a dumb-bell."

            But I think it has a curious  meaning, viz.  that
        of the mappa, "which  was held in the right hand of a
        Consul, which he threw into the arena as a signal for
        the games to commence."

            For a representation of the shape of the mappa I
        will  refer  you  to  plates  xxiii.  and  xxiv.  of
        Marriot's " Vestiarium Christianum."

            The  plates  there  shown  are photographed  from
        facsimiles   in  fictile  ivory,  published   by  the
        "Arundel Society."

            It is almost  certain  that the Indian  custom of
        Public  games, or jousts, was  an  extension  of the
        same  custom  prevalent  from earliest  date  in the
        Western portions of Asia, us at Dindymus;  and as the
        image of Cybele worshipped  there was carried to Rome
        during  the Punic wars, it is likely that the customs
        observed  at those  games  were borrowed  also by the
        Romans;  and this is all the more likely  as the word
        mappa  is said to be a Punic word: so that the use of
        this  folded  towel  as a signal  to begin  the games
        (something  like the modern  sponge  in prize-fights)
        was  probably  borrowed  by the Northern  Tribes  who
        passed  into  India, and especially  by the Sakyas, a
        chivalrous stud exotic race.

            Comparing  then the mappa, as seen in the plates
        of Marriott's  book, with the "dumb-bell"  instrument
        in the  hand  of the Prince  Siddartha  in "Tree  and
        Serpent Worship" in the plates (referred to above), I
        think we may find an explanation of the emblems there
        represented.