Ethnologists divide the Indian Āryas into two groups, the Indo-Aryan and the Aryo-Dravidian. The Indo-Aryans occupy the Indus basin, that is to say the greater part of the Panjab; and they have colonized a considerable part of Northern and Central Rajputana. They are homogeneous, more homogeneous than the English, who are the most homogeneous people in Europe; and that, despite various foreign invaders, who have settled among them within historic times, and whom they have assimilated. Prince and peasant differ little in their physical build.

Religious worship is abundantly illustrated in many of its most important aspects by scenes engraved on Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian seal cylinders. Chronologically the seals of this region illustrate nearly every period of the long history of these peoples and the changing rituals and beliefs of their religion. A very large proportion of the seals represent the owner of the seal approaching a deity in the attitude of prayer. This is especially true of the glyptique of Sumer and Akkad, where the proportion of this type of seal to all others is much greater than in Assyria. In the northern empire the Assyrians are not so much attached to the scenes of worship, but even here this motif is well represented. The engravers of cylinders in all periods probably kept in stock seals engraved with the scene of the private prayer as the custom imposed in their periods. The human who is figured standing before a god, or in Assyria more frequently before a divine symbol, is not a portrait of the owner of the seal. The owner regards himself rather as represented and symbolized by the conventional figure. In those cases in which the engraver produced a seal cylinder at the command of a Sumerian or Babylonian, perhaps, we may regard the praying figure as an approximate portrait.

There is frequently to be seen in cemeteries and monastery grounds in Japan a stone figure known as the Sotoba. The word is the Japanese pronunciation of the Sanscrit Stūpa, and the parts of the figure represent the Five Elements conceived as composing the Universe, namely: Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Space. An illustration of it is given in Fig. 1, taken from a Japanese Buddhist picture, in my possession, of the Sumisen, Mount Sumēru, the World Mountain. It may be convenient if the term Elemental Stūpa is used in this paper to designate this figure, so that it may be distinguished from what is usually implied by the word Stūpa in India. The term Sotoba will be used only when reference is made to the Elemental Stūpa in Japan.

The following is a transcription and translation of the reverse of the British Museum Tablet the text of which is given on p. 191. The whole legend, as far as known, is printed on pp. 185–205 from Professor Stephen Langdon's rendering.