Note 2 — The Saga of Ardschi-Bordschi and Vikramâditja’s Throne.

Kaitja or Chaitga is a sacred grotto where relics were preserved, or marking a spot where some remarkable event of ancient date had taken place. We are told that King Ashokja (246 B.C.) caused kaitjas to be built, or rather hewn, in every spot in his dominions rendered sacred by any act of Shâkjamuni’s life67; as also over the relics of many of the first teachers (p. 390). The number of these is fabled in the Mahâvansha (v. p. 26) to have been not less than 84,000! He opened seven of the shrines in which the relics of Shâkjamuni were originally placed, and divided them into so many caskets of gold, silver, crystal, and lapis lazuli, endowing every town of his dominion with one, and building a kaitja over it. These were all completed by one given day at one and the same time, and the authority of the Dharma (law) of Buddha was proclaimed in all. In process of time great labour came to be spent on their decoration, till whole temples were hewn out of the living stone, forming almost imperishable records of the earliest architecture of the country, and to some extent of its history and religion too. The most astonishing remains are to be seen of works of this kind, with files of columns and elaborate bas-reliefs sculptured out of the solid rock.