Mr. R. Sewell read on Monday before the Asiatic Society
a paper on some relics of Gautama or Buddha, now lying in the Central Museum in Madras. They consist of three pieces of bone taken from his corpse after cremation, and inclosed in a little casket made of a single beryl. The beryl was inclosed in other caskets of stone, and was buried apparently by some one named Kura, in a carefully built monument at Bhattiprolu, on the bank of the Kistna. Mr. Sewell read the history of the finding of the relic by Mr. Rea, and detailed evidence which conclusively proved that the relics were believed in about 200 B.C., and had not been disturbed since. He thought the evidence quite as good as the evidence for any relic of Charles I., and had indeed no doubt that the bones were taken from Buddha's funeral pile. The beryl being in- destructible by time, there is little reason for doubting the authenticity of the relics, and their discovery may make us reconsider the habit of rejecting the Papal stories of relics in such a wholesale fashion.
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