Note 251 — Chapter VI · ROCK-CUT CHURCHES.

Even if it should be asserted that this is no proof that the inhabitants of these countries were Buddhists in those days, it seems tolerably certain that they were tree-worshippers, which is very nearly the same thing. Procopius tells us that “even in his day these barbarians worshipped forests and groves, and in their barbarous simplicity placed the trees among their gods.” (‘De Bello Gotico,’ Bonn, 1833, ii. 471.)