Appendix

Appendix A — On Some Disputed Points of Indian Chronology

Throughout the preceding pages the dates of kings’ reigns, where quoted, have been assumed as known, and the eras from which they are calculated as ascertained. This has been done in order not to interrupt the narrative of events by introducing a chronological disquisition at every point where a date occurs; but no one at all familiar with the subject needs to be told that the dates of mediæval dynasties in India are far from settled, and that few are universally acquiesced in. Great progress has, it is true, been made in the last ten or twenty years in clearing away the difficulties that surround the subject. So much is this the case, that there are only one or two dates of sufficient importance to affect our reasoning which still remain in doubt; but though this may be true, there are many others about which the world in general feel considerable hesitation. It consequently becomes almost indispensable to state briefly the grounds on which the chronology used throughout this work is based, in order that the correctness of most of the inductions stated in it may be estimated at their true value.660

The earliest reasonable statement bearing on the subject which we possess is in the 9th chapter of Arrian’s ‘Indica.’ It is there stated—quoting from Megasthenes—“That from Bacchus (Ixwaku) to Sandrocottus (Chandragupta), the Indians reckon one hundred and fifty-three monarchs, who reigned during the space of six thousand and forty-two years.”

The first part of this statement is eminently satisfactory, as it seems clear from it that we possess in the Puranas the same lists as were submitted to the Greeks in the fourth century B.C. In the Solar lists, we have in the Treta Yug sixty-two reigns, from Ixwaku to Rama.661 There is no complete Lunar list in that age. For the Dwapar age we have three Solar lists: one for Kusha to Vrihadsana, thirty-five reigns; another from Dishta to Janamejaya, thirty-three reigns; and a third, from the son of Swadhaja, the father of Sita, wife of Rama, to Mahabasi, thirty-four reigns. In the Kali Yug we have no complete Solar list, but the Lunar list gives fifty descents from Jarasandha to the last Nanda. This gives 145 or 146 reigns, or rather too few. But the Lunar lists, from the Dwapar Yug, give forty-four from Puru to Yudhishihira, and fifty from Yadu to Krishna, so that the average is as nearly as may be that stated by Megasthenes.

The second part of the statement, giving these kings’ reigns an average duration of nearly forty years, must of course be rejected, but it is satisfactory to find that, at that early age, the falsification of the chronology had only gone to the extent of duplication, and that the monstrous system of Yugs, with all their attendant absurdities, had not then been invented.

Though it may not at present be capable of direct proof, I have myself no doubt that the date assigned by the Hindus for the Kali Yug (3101 B.C.) is a true date, though misapplied. It either was the date when the Aryans assumed that their ancestors had first crossed the Indus, or when they had first settled on the banks of the Saraswati or the Ghoghra. It forms no part of any subsequently invented system, and seems the only one fixed point in a sea of falsification. Assuming it for the present, and deducting Chandragupta’s date from it, we have 3101-325 = 2776 years from Ixwaku to Chandragupta, which, divided by 153, gives the reasonable number of eighteen years for the duration of each king’s reign. Of course it is not contended that these lists are absolutely to be depended upon—many names may be lost, and many misplaced, from the carelessness of copyists, or from other causes; but, on the whole, when treated in this manner, they afford a reasonable framework for the reconstruction of the ancient history of India, and one that accords perfectly with all we at present know about the ancient history of the immigrant Aryans.

If this view can be sustained, the events which are described in the Ramayana—not of course the poem, which is comparatively modern—took place about 2000 years before Christ. Adhering to the above average, we gather that the events described in the ‘Mahabharata,’ in like manner, occurred 900 years before Chandragupta, or 1225, or more precisely, according to the Puranic chronology, thus—

	B.C.
Chandragupta	325
Sisunagas, 360 years	360
Sunakas	128
Sabadeva to Ripunjaya, 23 reigns at 18 years	414
	1227

which may probably be taken as very near the true date.

It must for the present remain an open question whether the dates just quoted can be so established as to stand the test of the exigencies of modern critical acumen. It would be very satisfactory if this could be so accomplished. In the first place, because it would afford a firm basis for all our reasoning regarding the ancient history and ethnography of India, but also because it would prove that the Puranas do contain the germs of truths which, when properly investigated, may lead to the most important deductions. My own impression is entirely in favour of the existence of the requisite materials for the purpose; but the fashion has been lately to pooh-pooh the whole thing, and no attempt has been made—so far as I know—by any competent scholar, to investigate the matter on scientific principles.

Be this as it may, when we come to the Anjana era, 691 B.C.,662 and the life of Buddha, we tread on surer ground; and it is fortunate for our purposes that it so, as with the life of Buddha the mediæval history of India may be said to commence, and unless his date and that of his successors can be established with at least approximate certainty, the history of architecture in India must remain unintelligible. In this instance, however, the materials, I believe, exist in abundance. They have not, it is true, been as yet investigated to such an extent as to render any point certain, but the difficulties are daily disappearing, and as every point gained adds materially in throwing light on others that have hitherto been considered unsettled, we may hope before long to see the whole satisfactorily resolved.

There is perhaps no single point in the whole early history of India on which the chronicles of Ceylon and Further India are so distinct and unanimous than that Buddha died—as they express it, attained Nirvana—at the age of eighty years, in the year 543 B.C., or in the year 148 of the Eetzana 663 or Anjana epoch.664

Attempts have recently been made, it appears to me on the most illogical and insufficient data, to invalidate this conclusion. There is an admitted falsification in the Ceylonese annals, as set forth in the ‘Mahawanso,’ of sixty years about this date; but as Turnour, who first pointed it out, explained also the reason for it,665 the rectification is easy, and the result clear. It seems that Vijaya, the first Indian immigrant or conqueror of Ceylon, landed in the island 483 years B.C., or thereabout; and the reigns of his successors, down to Devenampiyatisso, the contemporary of Asoka, when added together, amount to only 236 years. When the annals came to be expounded in the ‘Mahawanso,’ it was thought expedient, for the good of religion, that the coming of Vijaya should be coincident with the death of Buddha; and as the sacred era could not be disturbed, Asoka’s reign was carried back so as to admit of the adjustment. This was effected principally by reducing the epoch of the nine Nandas from 100 years, at which the Puranas place them, to forty-four, and by other slight alterations. The sixty years was afterwards recovered by small increments to subsequent reigns, not of much consequence, but injuriously affecting the correctness of the whole chronology of the ‘Mahawanso,’ down to about A.D. 400, when it was compiled in its present form. As the date of Asako’s reign is perfectly well known (272-236 B.C.), we have only to reject the most improbable coincidence of Vijaya landing on the day of Buddha’s Nirvana, which there is nothing to support, and the whole becomes clear, and everything falls into its place.666

Besides the Ceylonese lists, and those quoted by Crawfurd from the Burmese annals,667 the Puranas afford us two, quoted below, which are of great interest to us, and the whole are so marvellously coincident, that there seems very little doubt of their general authenticity.

Solar List.		Lunar List.
		Saisunaga Dynasty reigned 360 years.
	B.C.		B.C.
Kritanjaya	691	Sisunaga	685
Rananjaya	—	Kakavarna	—
Sanjaya	—	Kshemadharman	—
Sakya	—	Kshetranjas	—
Suddhodana	—	Bimbisara 603
		Kanwapana, 9.
		Bhumiputra, 14.
Ratula	—	Ajatasatru	551
Prasenajit	—	Udayaswa	519
Kshudraka	—	Dasaka	503
Kundaka	—	Nagadasoka	495
Suratha	—	Sisunaga	471
Sumitra	451?	Kalasoka	453
		Maha Nanda	425
		Sumalya	—
		7 Nandas	—
		Interregnum Kautilya ending	325

With regard to the first or Solar list, Professor Wilson remarks, that “Sakya is no doubt the name of the author or reviver of Buddhism, but is out of place, as he was the son and not the father of Suddhodana.”668 This, however, is only one of the numerous instances in which the grandson takes his grandfather’s name, and which is an interminable cause of confusion in Indian chronological inquiries.669 Gautama, as we know, never ascended the throne, but devoted himself to his religious duties, but his son Ratula succeeded his grandfather. In like manner, the Prasenajit in the list is not the cousin and companion of Buddha, but the grandson, or grand-nephew of that earlier king of the same name. Sumitra, the last name mentioned in the Bhagavat Purana, seems to have ascended the throne about 451. There are no exact dates for fixing this event, and with him perished the long line of Solar monarchs, who for more than twenty-six centuries—if our chronology is correct—had influenced in so marked a manner the destinies of India.

It was during the reign of Kalasoka, the eleventh king of this dynasty, that the second convocation was held, 100 years after the Nirvana. This, too, it has recently become the fashion to doubt. The accounts, however, in the ‘Mahawanso,’ and the pointed mode in which it is referred to in the Burmese annals, seem sufficient to settle the point. Like Vijaya’s landing in Ceylon on the day of Buddha’s Nirvana, Prome is said to have been founded 443, the year of this convocation.670 They must have believed strongly, or they would not have attempted the adjustment.

As before mentioned, we have neither buildings, nor coins, nor inscriptions belonging to this period, nor indeed any material facts that would enable us to verify the chronological data. It is, however, so near the time when these became abundant, that it does not seem unreasonable to hope that some such evidences may turn up. Till something is found, the absence of all such materials must remain as a curious piece of evidence regarding the important influence that the contact of the nations of the West had on the arts and civilization of India at the time.

Maurya, Sunga, and Kanwa Dynasties.

Chronology.		Buildings.
Maurya Dynasty, 130 years.
	B.C.
Chandragupta	325
Bimbisara	301	Hathi Gumpha, Udayagiri.
Asoka	276	Caves at Barabhar, Inscriptions, Lâts, &c.
Suyasas	240
Dasaratha	230?	Cave at Barabhar.
Sangata	220?
Indrapalita	212?	Cave at Bhaja?
Somasarman	210
Sasadharman	203	Caves at Udayagiri.
Vrihadratha	195	Rail at Bharhut.
Sunga Dynasty, 112 years.
Pushpamitra	188	Cave at Bedsa.
Agnimitra	152
Sujyeshtha	144	Caves 9 and 12, Ajunta.
Vasumitra	137
Badraka, or Ardraka	129	Chaitya Cave, Nassick.
Pulindaka	127
Ghoshavasu	124
Vajramitra	121
Bhagavata	112
Devabhuti	86	Cave at Karli.
Kanwa Dynasty, 45 years.
Vasudeva	76
Bhumimitra	67	Raj Rani cave, Udayagiri?
Narayana	53
Susarman	41
“ died	31

The chronology of these three dynasties, as recorded in the Puranas, may admit of some adjustment in detail; but the whole is so reasonable and consistent that it can hardly be to any great extent. The whole, too, is now found to be so perfectly in accord with the architecture of their age, and with such inscriptions as have been found, that I see no reason whatever for doubting its general correctness.

The cardinal point on which the whole hinges is the twelfth year of Asoka’s reign after his consecration—the sixteenth from his inauguration. In that year he published his rock-cut edicts, in which he mentions his allies, Antiochus and Antigonus, Ptolemy (Philadelphus), Magas (of Cyrene), and Alexander (of Macedonia).671 As it happens, all these five names are mentioned together in Justin’s abridgment of Trogus Pompeius (xxvi. 2, 3 and xxvii. 1), though without giving any date. As Magas, however, died B.C. 257, and the only year in which all five were alive together was either that year or the preceding, we may safely assume that the sixteenth of Asoka was B.C. 256 or B.C. 257. If that is so it seems impossible to bring down the date of the accession of Chandragupta to a time more modern than one or two years after B.C. 325. The Ceylonese annals allow him thirty-four years,672 but our knowledge of what happened in India in Alexander’s time forbids any such extension. On the other hand, his accession happening in the year, or the year after, the defeat of Porus, is not exactly what we would expect from the context; but there is nothing, so far as I know, to controvert it.

Even if it were not so certain as it appears to be from the statements just quoted, there can be no doubt that the chronology of this period can easily be settled from the numerous inscriptions found in the rock-cut excavations quoted in the table, as well as from coins and other materials that exist. These dynasties thus become a fixed starting-point for all our inquiries, either backwards or forwards.

Andra, or Andrabritya Dynasty.

Chronology.		Buildings.
	B.C.
Sipraka	31
Krishna A.D.	8	Cave at Nassick.
Satakarni I.	10	South gateway, Sanchi.
Purnotsanga	28	Caves 10 and 11 Ajunta.
Srivaswami	46
Satakarni II.	64	Saka Era established A.D. 79.
Lambodara	120	Nahapana cave, Nassick.
Apitaka	138
Sangha	150
Satakarni III.	168	Rudra Dama, bridge inscription, A.D. 151.
Skandhaswati	186
Mrigendra	193
Kuntaluswati	196
Swatikarna	204
Pulomavit	205
Gorakshaswasri	241
Hala	266
Mantalaka	271
Purindra sena	276
Sindara	381
Rajadaswati	6 ms.
Sivaswati	284
Gautamiputra	312	Gupta Era established A.D. 319; cave at Nassick, outer rail Amravati.
Vasithi putra	333
Pulomat	335
Sivasri	363
Skandaswati	370
Yajnasri	377	Cave at Nassick.
Vijaya	406	Great cave Kenheri.
Chandrasri	412
Pulomat	422
“ died	429
or	436	Caves 16 17, and 19 Ajunta.

For this dynasty, as for the preceding three, we are dependent on the Puranas; but its chronology, like theirs, is so reasonable and so consistent with what we learn from other sources that I see no reason whatever for doubting its general correctness. There are slight discrepancies of course, not only as to names but as to the duration of this dynasty in the different Puranas. Thus the Vishnu Parana, according to Wilson, enumerates thirty kings, reigning 456 years; the Vayu and Bhagavat the same. The Matsya gives only twenty-nine kings, but makes them reign 460 years; but none of them give all the names, nor does the addition of the longest list extend beyond 435 years.673 The whole, from Chandragupta to the last, are also added together (p. 232), and make up 751 years, or bringing the last of the Andras down to A.D. 426. The actual fixation of these dates will probably be found in Nassick cave inscriptions. Two of these bear dates: one, apparently in the reign of Pulomavi, or Padma, is dated nineteen from an unspecified era; the other is in the twenty-fourth year of the “modern era,” and the act recorded is, apparently, by order of Gautamiputra.674 As it is, however, almost certain that the Gupta era, A.D. 319, was established in the reign of the last-named king, it seems probable that when these inscriptions are more carefully examined than they hitherto have been, they will fix these reigns with even greater certainty than we obtain from the Puranic dates; the one element of uncertainty being that the new era does not seem to be dated either from the accession of the king or from any great event, but four cycles of sixty years, or 240 years from the Saka era it was intended to supersede.675

However this may be settled, it cannot disturb either the initial or the final dates of this dynasty, nor affect to a greater extent than say ten or twelve years the period of 751, which extended from the accession of Chandragupta to the final overthrow of the Andras in or about A.D. 426.

This being so, it is evident that these four dynasties form the backbone of our mediæval chronology of India to which all minor events must be fitted, and fortunately most of them do so without any difficulty. It was the great period of Buddhist supremacy in India. There were, it is true, Buddhists in India before Asoka, but they were then only a sect, and Buddhism was a religion for two centuries after the fall of the Andras. It was then, however, a struggling faction. The modern Hindu religion was gradually raising its head under the Gupta and Ujjain princes, and in the 8th century it superseded Buddhism in most parts of India.

A great part of the uncertainty that of late years has crept into the chronology of this period is owing to the neglect with which these dynasties have been treated by modern investigators. This has arisen principally from the extreme rarity of their coins, while it has been principally from numismatic researches that progress has been made in the elucidation of many dark passages of Indian history. Coinage was, however, a most distinctly foreign importation into India. The Bactrian Greeks were the coiners par excellence, and it is through their coins, and those only, that complete lists of their kings down to 130 B.C. have been compiled. It is only from their coins also that we know the names of the barbarian kings who succeeded them, or those of the Sah kings, who appear next in our list. But the four dynasties from Chandragupta to Chandrasri were of native kings, who had only indirectly, if at all, come in contact with the Greeks, and had never learnt the art of coining, or, at least, used it to a sufficient extent to enable us to identify their names or succession from their coins. Their caves, and the inscriptions with which they covered their walls, are fast supplying the information their coins, if they had existed, would have afforded; but the investigation has not been taken up by those who have the ear of the public to the same extent as the numismatists. Enough, however, has been done to show that the materials exist for establishing the history of these dynasties on a sure basis; and when this is done from inscriptions combined with architecture, the results are more satisfactory than when dependent on numismatic evidence alone.

Sah Kings of Saurastra.

	Coin Dates.	A.D.
Nahapana	79	—
Ushavadata	—	—
Swami Chastana	—	—
Jaya Dama	—	—
Jiva Dama	—	—
Rudra Daman	72	151
Rudra Sinha	102	181
Rudra Sah	104	183
Sri Sah	—	—
Sangha Daman	—	—
Daman Sah	144	223
Yasa Daman	—	—
Damajata Sri	—	—
Vira Daman	—	—
Isvara Datta	—	—
Vijaya Sah	170	249
Damajata Sri	—	—
Rudra Sah	197	276
Visva Sinha	—	—
Atri Daman	—	—
Visva Sah	200	279
22. Rudra Sinha	270	—
Asa Daman	271	280
Swami Rudra Sah	292	371	676
Swami Rudra Sah II.	—	—

The evidence on which the dates in the above list are founded is in curious contrast with that on which those of the previous dynasties rest. It is almost wholly numismatic. The founder of the dynasty, Nahapana, describes himself as the viceroy or satrap of King Kshaharata,677 certainly a foreigner, who conquered the country and held it in subjection for nearly 300 years.

The one point that interests us here is to ascertain from what era the dates on the coins are to be calculated. When I previously wrote on the subject,678 I felt inclined to adopt a suggestion that Nahapana was the founder of the era known afterwards as that of Vicramaditya, B.C. 56. I did this principally because I felt certain that no king of that name reigned in the first century B.C., and I could discover no event occurring about that time so important as to deserve to be commemorated by an era.

On the other hand, a foreign conquest and the foundation of a new dynasty were just such events as would be so celebrated; and, pending further evidence, this assumption seemed to account for what was otherwise inexplicable in the foundation of this era. Since then, however, a more careful study of Rudra Daman’s Bridge inscription,679 and the architectural evidence detailed in the preceding pages, have convinced me that such a theory was untenable. The Bridge inscription is dated in the year 72, from the same era from which all the coins of these kings are dated. In it he boasts “that, after twice conquering the Sata Karni, Lord of Dakshinapatha, he did not completely destroy him on account of their near connexion, and thus obtained glory.” And he boasts of conquering, among other countries, Anupa, Saurastra, Asva Kutcha, Kukura, Aparanta, &c.680

A little further on in our history, Gautamiputra, in whose reign the era was established which was afterwards adopted by the Guptas and Ballabhis, boasts, in an inscription in a cave at Nassick, that he had conquered, among others, all the countries above enumerated, and as having re-established the glory of the Satavahana dynasty, and destroyed the race of Khagarata.681 All this reveals a state of matters that will not accord with the Vicramaditya era, but does perfectly agree with that of Salivahana.

Assuming that the Sata Karni dynasty is correctly represented in the Puranas, as enumerated above, Rudra Dama would, on the assumption that the dates were Samvat, have been reigning A.D. 16 (72-56), immediately after the establishment of the dynasty, and before the long and prosperous reign of Sata Karni II., which could hardly have taken place had his family been smitten so early in their career. But if we assume that it was A.D. 151 (79+72), it would coincide with the reign of the third king of that name, and at a time when, so far as we can judge from the length of the reigns, and the careless way they are enumerated in the Puranas, the fortunes of the family were considerably depressed; and it is little more than a century and a half after this time that Gautamiputra restored the fortunes of his family. Had 300 years elapsed between these two events, the family could hardly ever have attained the position it did.

Another point of more importance is, that the dates on the Sah coins—from whatever era calculated—extend only to 270-271, or doubtfully to 292.682 If these are calculated from the Vicramaditya Samvat, they must have ceased to reign in A.D. 214, or at the latest A.D. 236, and there would have been no Khagaratas for Gautamiputra to humble after A.D. 312. On the other hand, if calculated from A.D. 79, their final extinction would have been in A.D. 349, or at latest A.D. 371. So that, though humbled by Gautamiputra, they overlap the Gupta era to some extent, which it seems is almost indispensable to account for the mode in which the Sah coins overlap and run into those of the Gupta series, on which Mr. Thomas so strongly and, it appears to me, so correctly insists.683

One of two things seems necessary: either that the Guptas shall be carried back so as to overlap the Sahs, dating either from the Vicramadityan or Selucidan eras, or that the Sahs be brought down so as to overlap them, if dating from the era bearing their name. Mr. Thomas and General Cunningham prefer the former hypothesis. For the reasons just stated, and others to be given further on, I feel convinced that the latter hypothesis is the only one that is in accordance with the facts of the case as we now know them.

This substitution of the Saka era for the Samvat brings what we know of the history, with what we learn from the inscriptions, and gather from the coins, so completely into accordance, that I can hardly doubt now that it is the correct view of the matter, and certainly more in accordance with the facts than that I previously adopted.

Guptas.

Although the Puranas conduct us in so reasonable and satisfactory a manner to the end of the Andrabritya dynasty, their guidance forsakes us there. After that, all the subsequent contemporary dynasties were thrown into hotch-pot—to use a legal expression—and a system of fraud and falsification commenced which is the reproach of Indian history. It is not, however, difficult to see the causes of this new and monstrous invention. For six centuries and a half Buddhism had reigned supreme in India, and the system of the Brahmans, though probably never extinct, was at least subdued and subordinate. With the decline of the Andras this state of affairs was altered. The Guptas, who immediately succeeded them, are shown, both by their coins and inscriptions, to have been followers of Vishnu and Siva,684 and their buildings at Erun tell the same story.685

Though the Guptas may have inaugurated the new system, it was by the great Vicramaditya of Ujjain that it was established, A.D. 515-550. He did for the new religion what Asoka had done for Buddhism some seven and a half centuries before his time. He made a state religion in India, and established it so firmly that little more than a century after his death it seems to have superseded Buddhism altogether. It is in his reign, apparently, that the Puranic system was invented—not that the Puranas were written or all the falsifications of history invented in his day, but a commencement was then made, and by the 10th or 11th century of our era it was brought to the complete perfection of fraud in which it is now found.

One of the first necessities of the new system was to throw back the period when India was Buddhist, and to place a gulf between them and their successors. To effect this, the Puranas enumerate the following:—“After these” (the Andrabrityas) “various races will reign—seven Abhiras, ten Gardabhilas, sixteen Sakas, eight Yavanas, fourteen Tusharas, thirteen Mandas, eleven Maunas or Hunas 686—seventy-nine princes will be sovereigns of the earth for 1399 years. Then eleven Pauras will be kings for 300 years; when they are destroyed, Kailakila Yavanas will be kings, the chiefs of whom will be Vindhya Sacti, &c.—106 years.” After various others: “The nine Nagas will reign in Padmavati, Kantipura, and Mathura; and the Guptas of Magadha along the Ganges to Pryaga.”687 Although we cannot identify all these dynasties with certainty, we know, at all events, that, instead of succeeding one another during more than 2000 years, they were all more or less contemporary—certainly that none were earlier than the Gupta era (A.D. 319)—and that none of them survived Vicramaditya (A.D. 550). The Sakas and Maunas, or Hunas, may be those destroyed by him, but of this hereafter. The Vindhya Sactis were contemporary with the Guptas, and the Gardabhilas are somehow connected with Bahram Gaur the Sassanian; and others we recognise dimly, but they are not sufficiently important to be discussed here.

Of all these the most important are the Guptas, and fortunately their date is one of the most clearly established facts in mediæval Indian chronology.688

Dynasty.	Coins and Dates on Inscriptions.	A.D.
Sri or Raja Gupta	—	—
Maharaja Ghatotkacha	—	—
M. R. adhiraja Chandra Gupta I.	82, 93+319 =	401, 412. Caves 16 to 20 Ajunta. Buildings at Erun.
″ Samudra ″	—	—
″ Chandra Gupta II.	—	—
″ Kumara ″	124+ ″ =	443
″ Skanda ″	130, 137, 141, 146+ ″ =	449, 456, 460, 465
Mahendra a minor	—	—
Maharaja Sri Hastina	163+ ″ =	482
Raja Buddha	165+ ″ =	484
M. R. adhiraja Toramana	182+ ″ =	501

The three last named can hardly be considered as belonging to the great dynasty, though they date from the same era, and the two first were comparatively insignificant characters. It was only Chandra Gupta I., A.D. 401, who assumed the title of Maharaja adhiraja, and founded the greatness of his race on the ruins of that of the Andrabrityas.

In addition to the above chronology, compiled from coins and dated inscriptions, Major Watson has recently supplied a most important item to their history from written records existing in Gujerat.

From this we learn that Chandra Gupta II. reigned twenty-three years after the conquest of Saurastra by his son; that Kumara Pal Gupta reigned twenty years; and that Skanda Gupta succeeded him, but lost Saurastra by the rebellion of his Senapati Bhatarka, the founder of the Ballabhi family. Two years after this event Skanda Gupta died, and, as we are informed, “at this time the Gupta race were dethroned by foreign invaders.”689

The era from which these dates are taken never appeared to me doubtful; and this confirms more and more the conviction that it was from the era that bears their name, A.D. 319. It could not be from the Saka era, as has generally been assumed, from the fact that Albiruni asserts that the era that bears their name, was “apparently” that of their destruction,690 because in that case Skanda Gupta must have lived and reigned for ninety-four years in addition to the sixteen we already know, from inscriptions, he occupied the throne. A reign of 110 years seems impossible; and, if it is not so, it seems certain, for the reasons stated in my previous paper, that the Gupta era, 319, is that from which their coins and inscriptions are dated.

Besides this, there is an inscription on the rock at Junaghar, engraved by the same Skanda, the last of the great Guptas. This was not translated by Prinsep, though a copy of it was in his hands before his last illness.691 Had he lived to translate it, my impression is that the controversy as to the age of the Guptas never would have arisen—its evidence seems so absolute. Be this as it may, it never appeared, so far as I know, in a complete form and translated, till this was accomplished by the late Bhau Daji in the sixth volume of the Bombay Journal of 1862. In it we have three dates—the Sadarsana lake is said to have burst its banks in 130, to have been repaired in 137, and a temple to Vishnu built in 138, and twice it is repeated “counting from the era of the Guptas” (Guptasya Kala). The stone is worn where the middle date occurs, but there is just space enough for these words. The same king, on the Kuhaon pillar, dates his inscription in 141,692 but without mentioning the era, which seems to have been so usual in Bengal as not to require being specified.

Besides this, the 146 693 years from 319, which we know from their dated inscriptions that they reigned, is just the interval that is required to fill up the gap between the Ballabhis and their era which they adopted on usurping the inheritance of the Guptas, two years before Skanda Gupta’s death.694

One other point of considerable importance to Indian history which arises from the fixation of this date (A.D. 465-70) for the destruction of the Guptas is, that it was almost certainly the White Huns who were the “foreign invaders” that struck the blow that stopped their career. At least, we learn from Cosmas Indicopleustes, writing seventy years after this time, that the Huns were a powerful nation in the north of India in his day, and we may infer, from what he says of them, had been settled there some time.695

On the Bhitari Lât, Bhau Daji reads—somewhat doubtfully, it must be confessed—the fact that Skanda Gupta had fought, apparently with success, against the Hunas.696 But the great point is that it was just about this time that the White Huns broke loose and extended their incursions east and west, so that there is not only no improbability of their being the “foreign invaders” alluded to, but every likelihood they were so. No one, indeed, can, I believe, with the knowledge we now possess, read De Guignes’ chapter on the White Huns,697 without perceiving that it contains the key to the solution of many mysterious passages in Indian history. It is true India is not mentioned there; but from the time of Bahram Gaur in 420, till the defeat of Feroze in 475, the Persians were waging an internecine war with these Huns, and nothing can be more likely than that the varying fortunes of that struggle should force them to seek the alliance of the then powerful Guptas, to assist them against their common foe.

Precisely the same impression is conveyed by what is said by Ferishta and the Persian historians 698 of the history of that time. Nothing can now, however, be more easily intelligible than the visit of Bahram Gaur to India when first attacked by the White Huns. His marriage with an Indian (? Gupta) princess of Canouge; the tribute or assistance claimed by Feroze and his successors on the Persian throne, are all easily explicable, on the assumption that the two nations were at that time engaged in a struggle against a common enemy. This, too, explains the mention of the Shah in Shahi on Samudra Gupta’s Allahabad inscription.699 Hence, too, the decided Persian influence on the gold coinage of the Canouge Guptas,700 and the innumerable Sassanian coins of that period found in all parts of the north of India.701 In all this the Sassanians seem inseparably mixed with the Guptas. The Persians, however, came eventually victorious out of the war. The great Guptas were struck down at some date between 465-70, or very shortly afterwards. The struggle, however, was apparently continued for some time longer by a subordinate branch of their successors; inasmuch as we learn from an inscription found at Aphsar in Behar,702 that the fourth of that dynasty, Damodara Gupta, “successfully encountered, at the battle of Maushari, the fierce army of the Western Huns.” This event may have stopped the career of the Huns in India, in which case it could not well have taken place before the year 535, when Cosmas Indicopleustes is supposed to have written his ‘Topographia Christiana;’ but it is by no means clear that he was not describing events that took place when he was himself in India some time previously. But be this as it may, it brings us to the time when the battles of Korûr—of which more hereafter—and Maushari freed India from the Sakas and Hunas, who had long held her in hated subjection. As I shall presently attempt to show, it appears to me hardly doubtful that these two battles were fought between 524 and 544; and they thus fix one of the most important epochs in mediæval Indian history. Indeed, so near each other are these two events in date, that I sometimes feel almost inclined to fancy they may be only different names for the same battle. At all events, they almost certainly represent parts of the same campaign which freed India in that age from the Yavanas; and that it was to commemorate the glories of these struggles that the Vicramaditya Samvat was instituted. This expulsion of the Yavanas was, too, the first serious blow that was struck at Buddhist supremacy, and from the effects of which it never afterwards completely recovered.

Ballabhi Dynasty.

	Dates on Inscriptions.	A.D.
Bhatarka Senapati	—	465 or 470
Dharasena ″	—	—
Dronasinha	—	—
Dhruvasena Maharaja	—	} Cotem. Vicramaditya
Dharapatta	—	} Dynasty
Grihasena	—	} of Ujjain,
Sridhara Sena	—	} 470 to 550.
Siladitya I.	—	—
Charagriha I.	—	—
Sridhara Sena II.	272	591
Dhruvasena II.	—	Cotem. Hiouen Thsang
Sridharasena III.	—	—
Siladitya II.	356	675
Charagriha II.	—	—
Siladitya III.	—	—
Siladitya Musalli	400	718

However mistaken Albiruni may be in his dates, there is little doubt that he is quite correct in his statement to the effect that “L’ère de Ballabha est postérieure à celle de Saca de 241 ans. Apparemment Ballabha suivit immédiatement les Gouptas, car l’ère des Gouptas commence aussi 241 de l’ère de Saca.”703 This we learn also, with the particulars how it happened, from Colonel Watson’s account of the transaction; while Colonel Tod’s celebrated Puttun Somnath inscription makes it also certain that the Ballabhi era commenced A.D. 319.704 This being so, it seems difficult to understand why the era should have been called that of Ballabhi as well as that of the Guptas, unless it were that it was adopted by the first-named dynasty, and that they dated from it their acts and inscriptions, which are extremely numerous. There may be reasons why this should be otherwise; but, though the point has been generally and fiercely contested by eminent Indian chronologists, I fail to appreciate the arguments brought forward in favour of either the Vicramaditya or Saka eras,705 and look upon their own era (A.D. 319) as certainly the one from which all the Gupta inscriptions are dated.

My impression is, that this would never have been considered doubtful but for an incautious statement by Colonel Tod that Ballabhi was destroyed by the Parthians A.D. 524,706 in the reign of a Siladitya, its last king. Its inhabitants were, according to this account, slaughtered with the usual romantic incidents; but after a while a remnant established themselves in Sidhapore, and finally built a new capital, which they called Anhilwarra.

The utter falsity of the information so supplied to Colonel Tod is proved by the fact that when Ballabhi was visited by Hiouen Thsang, 115 years after its reputed destruction, he found it not only standing, and neither Sidhapore nor Anhilwarra thought of, but the old capital still remaining one of the richest and most prosperous cities of India, and its king one of the three greatest kings of northern India. The king’s name was Dhruvapaton, and he was a nephew or grand-nephew of Siladitya of Malwa, and the son-in-law of Siladitya, the reigning king of Canouge.707 Lastly, we have the dates in copper-plates of a Dhruvasena, one in 310+319=629; the other 322+ 319, or 641,708 the very year that Hiouen Thsang met him at Allahabad, if we assume them dated from the Ballabhi Samvat.

It would be satisfactory if we could determine the date of the destruction of Ballabhi with precision, as it is one of these events that mark an epoch in Indian history. It was one of the concluding acts of the old drama that closed the mediæval period of Indian history, and ushered in the dark ages which lasted more than two centuries from that time.

The materials for this hardly exist at present, though it may be approximated. We have numerous inscriptions of this dynasty, dated 310, 326, 338, 348, &c.,709 or A.D. 629, 645, 657, 667 respectively, if the figures are all correctly read, which is not quite clear; and lastly, Mr. Burgess reports one dated 400, or A.D. 719, belonging to the last Siladitya, and consequently approaching very nearly to the event. Two accounts are current as to the mode in which the destruction was effected: one, that it was caused by an earthquake, which may have happened at any time;710 the other (by Tod), that the city was destroyed by the Parthians. If it was by a foreign foe, it could only have been by the Mahomedans. They were on the Indus in strength in 22 Hegira,711 or A.D. 644, or before Hiouen Thsang had left India, and no foreigner could have crossed the Indus or attacked Ballabhi after that time, or for some years before it, without being noticed by Mahomedan historians. They remained there in strength till after Mahomed Kasim, 711-715,712 and it was to him that I was at one time inclined to ascribe the destruction. If, however, Mr. Burgess’s date is correct, his death was three years too early. But I do not think it at all improbable that Ballabhi is one of the cities—Barus and Uzain—said to be plundered by Junaid in A.D. 725 or 726.713 Barus looks very like Baroach, and Uzain is almost certainly Ujjain—but whether Maliba is Ballabhi, I must leave others to determine.

All the accounts agree that Anhilwarra Puttun was founded Samvat 802, or A.D. 746,714 which may be correct within a year or two; but from the accounts we have, it is clear that an interval of from twenty to thirty years must have elapsed between the two events, during which the inhabitants of the destroyed city sought refuge at Punchâsur and Sidhapore before they undertook the building of their new capital. If, therefore, we assume 725 as the date of the destruction of Ballabhi, we shall probably not err more than a year or two either way.

The earliest date of this family yet discovered is one on a copperplate of Dharasena II., which has been read by Professor Bhandarkar as 272,715 or, according to the views here adopted, 591. It is hardly probable that any much earlier will be found; for it must be borne in mind that though the Ballabhis wrested the sovereignty of Gujerat from the Guptas two years before Skanda’s death (ante, p. 724), neither the first nor second of the race ventured to assume even the modest title of Raja; they were content to remain Senâpatis, or Generals. The third calls himself Maharaja; but their greatness only culminated in or about A.D. 650, when one of them, Sri Dharasena III., became Maharaja Adhiraja—King of kings or Emperor of Northern India.716 The reason of this, as we shall presently see, was that the family that really succeeded the Guptas in the place of supreme authority in India was that of Ujjain, the second or third monarch of this race being the celebrated Vicramaditya, whose date, for reasons to be given hereafter, seems almost certainly to have been from 515 to 550. Be this as it may, as we shall presently see, it seems quite certain that a great Brahmanical revival took place in the beginning of the 6th century, which quite overshadowed all the Buddhist dynasties in northern India. For a while these were again eclipsed by a reflex wave of Buddhism, which for a century—A.D. 550-650—again illumined India. It was a last expiring effort, however, and after the last-named date it was only a struggle for existence on the part of the Buddhists, and in another century they are known no longer in those central countries where they had so long reigned supreme.

Chalukya Dynasties.

Western Branch.
Capital Kalyan. Eastern Branch.
Capital Rajmehendri.
1. Jaya Sinha Vijayaditya.
2. Raja Sinha, Rana Raga, Vishnu Vardhana.
3. Vijayaditya II.
4. Pulakesi, A.D. 489? 5. Kirtti Varma I.
6. Mangalisa.
7. Satyasraya began to reign 609.
8. Amara.
9. Aditya.
10. Vikramadiya I.
11. Vinayaditya, Yuddha Malla, began to reign A.D. 680.
12. Vijayaditya III. began to reign A.D. 695.
13. Vikramaditya II. began to reign A.D. 733.
14. Kirtti Varma II.
15. Kirtti Varma III., cousin of the last, A.D. 799.
16. Tailapa.
17. Bhima Raja.
18. Ayya, or Kirtti Varma IV.
19. Vijayaditya IV.
20. Taila Bhupa II. or Vikramaditya III., in A.D. 973 restored the monarchy which had been for some time usurped by the Ratta Kula. He died A.D. 997.
21. Satyasraya II. Irivi Bhujanga Deva, A.D. 997.
22. Vikramaditya V. began to reign about A.D. 1008 (?) 23. Jaya Sinha Deva, Jagadeka Malla, about A.D. 1018 (?) 24. Someswara Deva I., Trailokya Malla Ahawa Malla, about A.D. 1040.
25. Someswara Deva II., Bhuneka Malla A.D. 1099, expelled by his brother.
26. Vikramaditya VI., Kali Vikrama, Tribhuvana Malla, in A.D. 1076.
27. Someswara Deva III., Bhuloka Malla, A.D. 1127.
28. Jagadeka Malla, A.D. 1138.
29. Tailapa Deva III., Trailokya Malla, A.D. 1150.
30. Someswara Deva IV., Tribhuvana Malla, A.D. 1182. Dethroned by Bijjala Deva of the Kalabhuriya line.
1. Vishnu Vardhana II., or Kubja
Vishnu Vardhana, conquered
Vengi A.D. 605.
2. Jaya Sinha I.
3. Indra Raja, his brother.
4. Vishnu Vardhana III.
5. Manga Yuva Raja.
6. Jaya Sinha III. }
7. Kokkili. } brothers.
8. Vishnu Vardhana IV. }
9. Vijayaditya I.
10. Vishnu Vardhana V.
11. Narendra Mriga Raja.
12. Vishnu Vardhana VI., or Kali Vishnu Vardhana.
13. Vijayaditya II., or Guna Gunanka Vijayaditya, conquered Kalinga.
14. Chalukya Bhima I., his brother.
15. Vijayaditya III., or Kollabhiganda Vijaya.
16. Amma Raja.
17. Vijayaditya IV., or Kaudagachita Vijaya.
18. Talapa. Usurper.
19. Vikramaditya V., the son of a brother of Amma Raja I.
20. Yuddha Malla.
21. Raja Bhima II.
22. Amma Raja II.
23. Dhanarnava. Interregnum of twenty-seven years.
24. Kirtti Varma, son of Dhanarnava.
25. Vimaladitya, his brother.
26. Raja Raja Narendra.
27. Rajendra Chola.
28. Vikrama Deva Kulottunga Chola.
29. Raja Raja Chola, viceroy for one year.
30. Vira Deva Kulottunga Chola, or Saptama Vishnu Vardhana. Viceroy from A.D. 1079 to 1135.

After this the southern part of these dominions
fell under the sway of the Hoisala Bellalas, whose
rise in the Mysore dates from A.D. 984; their
destruction by the Mahomedans in 1310. After Vira Deva Kulottunga Chola the country
fell under the sway of the Kakatya dynasty of
Worangul, of whom Pratapa Rudra was the chief
(A.D. 1162). The latest of their inscriptions is
dated A.D. 1336.

The two lists in the preceding page are among the most interesting and most important of those we possess, inasmuch as they contain the backbone of all we know regarding the Chalukyas, and are, in fact, what justify us, historically, in erecting their style into a separate division, different from the other forms of architecture known in India.

What we know of these dynasties is almost wholly due to the intelligent zeal of Sir Walter Elliot, who, during his residence in India, made a collection of 595 inscriptions from various parts of the Dekhan. From these he abstracted the lists he first published in the fourth volume of the Royal Asiatic Society; but afterwards much more in detail in the ‘Madras Journal,’ in 1858, from which these lists are copied verbatim.717 Some of the inscriptions were translated and published with those papers, and others by Major—now General—- Le Grand Jacob, in the Bombay Journal (vol. iii. p. 206, et seqq.), and other notices of them are found among Mr. Wathen’s inscriptions in various volumes of the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.’ But we shall not know more than a fraction of what we ought to, and might know, till Sir Walter Elliot’s inscriptions are translated and published.718 When this is done, and the architecture of the Nizam’s territory explored, the Chalukyan style will take its place worthily between the Dravidian and Indo-Aryan styles, and will, if I mistake not, be found equal to either, both in importance and in artistic merit.

Fortunately there is no mistake or doubt about the era from which the Chalukyan inscriptions are dated: the Ballabhi branch succeeding to the possessions of the Guptas in Gujerat, naturally adopted their era, but the southern branch being entirely detached from any such association, adopted the Saka era (A.D. 79), which was then, so far as is known, the only other era at that time in use in India. What is equally important is, that there seems only one doubtful date among all those quoted in the lists—that of 411 Saka (A.D. 490), attached to the name of Pulakesi I. In his first paper,719 Sir Walter Elliot thought it so improbable, that he rejected it altogether; and Professor Eggeling tells me he has strong reasons for suspecting the copperplate on which it is found to be a forgery.

As an initial date it does not appear impossible, if my views are correct, though certainly improbable. If Bhatarka Senapati wrested Gujerat from Skanda Gupta two years before his death, or in 463 or 468, it is by no means impossible that the fourth from him may have been reigning in A.D. 490, but the difficulty is the other way. There seems no doubt, from Mr. Burgess’s Badami inscriptions,720 that Mangalisa succeeded his brother Kirtti Varma in 567, and it does seem impossible that he should have been the son of one who was reigning in 490, especially if he continued to reign till 609. If Mangalisa was the son of Pulakesi, which there seems no reason for doubting, it is evident that the central figure of his date must be altered to a higher number; but to what extent we shall not know till it is ascertained whether Vijaya was the son or grandson of Bhatarka Senapati. In the meanwhile, however, if we, as an hypothesis, add fifty years to the date of 411, and make it 461, or A.D. 540, it will allow Pulakesi a reign of twenty-seven years before the accession of Mangalisa in 567, which will bring the whole within the limits of probability, and seems perfectly consistent with the context.

With the seventh king we tread on surer ground. He was the king who, when bearing his grandfather’s name, Pulakesi, Hiouen Thsang visited in 640,721 and was, as his inscriptions tell us,722 the hero of those wars with Harsha Verddhana, or Siladitya of Malwa, which Ma-twan-lin so graphically describes as occurring in 618 to 627. From that time the dynasty seems to have flourished till the death of Vicramaditya II. He ascended the throne 733, and died about 750, or twenty-five years more or less after the destruction of the Ballabhi branch. After this, as Sir Walter Elliot expresses it, “the power of the Chalukyas was alienated for a time, or had suffered a partial obscuration, till the time of Teila, who is described as restoring the monarchy in 973.”723 After this it enjoyed two centuries of prosperity, till it was finally extinguished—their northern possessions passing to the Kalabhuryas—their southern to the Hoisala Bellalas of Dwarasamudra or Hullabîd.

The history of the younger branch of this family will be more interesting to some future historian of Indian architecture than it is to us at the present day. Their possessions lay principally below the Eastern Ghâts, on the shores of the Bay of Bengal, in what are generally known as the three Circars, extending from Gangam—in their day I believe—to Mahavellipuram; but of their architecture we know nothing. No traveller educated in architectural matters has yet visited that country; and though it sounds like a paradox to say so, what we do know of it we learn from buildings not erected by them, and in a country they never seem to have possessed. It is only from the buildings of Pratapa Rudra at Worangul and elsewhere above the Ghâts that we can appreciate the perfection to which they had brought their style.

From the meagre extracts from the inscriptions of Pulakesi I., which Sir Walter Elliot gives in his first essay on this subject,724 there seems little doubt that he was the king who, 100 years before Hiouen Thsang’s time, harried the monastery at Amravati,725 and abolished Buddhism in those parts. It seems also more than probable, as he conquered the Chola, and burnt Conjeveram, that he also expelled the Pallavas, and commenced the works at Mahavellipur. If the rock-cut monastery mentioned by Fa Hian and Hiouen Thsang, and so often referred to above, existed at all, it was in his territories, and may still exist in the Nizam’s. If it did so, nothing seems more probable than that he should seek to mark the boundary of his southern conquest by similar works. Knowing all this, we see also why there should be so much similarity between Mangalisa’s cave at Badami, and the nearly contemporary caves at Mahavellipur. We know, too, that there is a vast tract of country in Central India, extending east and west from shore to shore, and north and south from Sadras to Ellora, which is covered with buildings of great beauty and interest, but which nobody cares to explore. We know also that there exists in the Asiatic Society’s rooms a volume which contains their history, and that of the dynasties who built them, but which nobody cares to read. Knowing how easily all this could be remedied, it is tantalising to close this history with so meagre a sketch of the Chalukyan style as that contained in the preceding pages, but as the principles of the Indian Council seem fixed, its description must in all probability be relegated to a subsequent generation.

Ujjain and Canouge Dynasties.
	Reign.	Date.
Vasu Deva
Vicramaditya I. of Ujjain	25	470?
Sri Harsha	20	495?
Vicramaditya II. the Great	35	515
Siladitya I. of Malwa	30	550
Prabhukara	25	580
Raja Verddhana	5	605
Siladitya II. of Canouge	40	610
Died and troubles commenced	—	648-650

Although the Ballabhis wrested the province of Gujerat from the failing hands of Skanda, the last of the Great Guptas, two years before his death, in or about 470, they remained long in a subordinate position. Their earliest inscription yet found dates only in 593, and their one Emperor or Raja Adhiraja, Sri Dharasena III., only ascended the throne after the Canouge dynasty were struck down in 648-50.

The interval between these two events we are now happily able to fill up with two of the most illustrious dynasties of India—the first including the reign of the great Vicramaditya of Ujjain, who is to the Hindus what Solomon is to the Jews, or Asoka to the Buddhists. The last-named religion, as mentioned above, was becoming effete about the middle of the 5th century, and the Guptas were introducing the modern Brahmanical faith in its place. What, however, they were only feebly attempting, the Ujjain dynasty accomplished with a brilliancy that has eclipsed everything that happened before or since in India, in the eyes of the Hindus at least. All that is great in science, or in poetry, or the arts, shone forth around his wonderful throne—the exact counterpart of Solomon’s—and all that subsequently took place in India bears the stamp of his greatness. It seems, however, to have been too bright to last. The four succeeding monarchs were Buddhists—of a singularly tolerant type it is true—but still certainly favourers of that religion. The last of them, Siladitya, was the king at whose court Hiouen Thsang sojourned in 636, and afterwards in 642, and where he witnessed the festival of the distribution of alms so often alluded to above. Hiouen Thsang gives the date of his death categorically, 650, and adds, though in the form of a prophecy, that after that, “l’Inde entière sera en proie à des troubles affreux—et des hommes pervers se feront une guerre acharnée.”726 This is more than confirmed by Ma-twan-lin, but with an apparent discrepancy of date, to the extent, it may be, of two years.727 It was in fact the commencement of those troubles which extinguished Buddhism, then in Central India, and a century later abolished it wholly, except in some remote corners of the land.

Whether he died in 648 or 650, there is no doubt, from the numerous incidents our Chinese traveller recounts, that this Siladitya ascended the throne 610, one year after his great rival, Pulakesi II., of Kalyan, who, as pointed out above, began to reign in 609, and fought with him with varying success in 618-627.

For the chronology of the four preceding reigns we have nothing but the assertion of Hiouen Thsang, that “suivant la tradition”728—and in another place, “on lit dans l’histoire de ce royaume,729 que le trône était occupé il y a soixante ans par un roi nommé Siladitya;” and further, that he reigned fifty years, which would carry us back to 530 for the accession of this king, supposing the passage was written in 640.

Notwithstanding the confidence with which it is stated, I have no hesitation in rejecting as excessive 110 for the length of the reign of three kings, two of whom were brothers. I do so with the more confidence, as our author, though so exact a geographer, and recorder of things he saw, is in no one instance to be depended upon for his dates. He resided, for instance, for five years at Nalanda, and must have had access to its records, yet he tells us that the convent existed for 700 years,730 and then gives the names of the five kings by whom the various parts were built from that time to his day, but sees no absurdity in representing these in all instances as the son of the one next named previously. Each, according to his account, must have reigned more than 100 years! To what extent this date of the accession of Siladitya must be curtailed can only be ascertained from subsequent discoveries or investigations. For the present it will suffice to abridge it by twenty years, which will bring it in accord with all that we at present know from other sources.731

When we turn to the other end of our list, we have certainly three—probably four kings—for whom we must find room in eighty years and one of the three, the great Vicramaditya, must have had a long reign. Professor Wilson ascribes to him thirty-five years,732 and I know of no authority better than his, especially for the history or chronology of this period. The Hindus themselves, with their usual carelessness, have forgotten to record it; and though there are certain dates in the Puranas and elsewhere, there are no means of testing their accuracy; for his accession, however, there are one or two that are worth recording. Thus, Wilford reports that this Vicramaditya ascended the throne of Malwa 441,733 reckoning from the first of Salivahana, or, 520; or, according to the Agni Purana, 437 years after the same epoch, or 516,734 which, I believe, may be the exact year; and there are several other dates which might be used to confirm this assumption, but there are no means of testing the genuineness.

Assuming this for the present, it leaves only forty-five years for the two or three preceding reigns; and it seems hardly sufficient for the purpose, for, as we shall presently see from the ‘Raja Tarangini,’ there were nine descents between Pratapaditya, the friend of the first Vicramaditya, and Matrigupta, the protégé of the second. Of course there may be considerable overlapping among the first and last of these nine kings, but it seems impossible to compress the whole within a shorter period than has been allowed.

However the small discrepancies of this dynasty may hereafter be adjusted, it is satisfactory to know that there is probably no date that will admit of a greater correction than say ten years, if so much, and the age of the last king, Hiouen Thsang’s friend, enables us to feel perfectly certain as to the dates of his son-in-law, Dhruvasena, of Ballabhi, of Sasanka, of Pundra Verddhana, of Kumara, of Kamarupa, and of Pulakesi II. of Kalyan. We have thus at least one fixed point in our mediæval history which is quite certain, and from which we can calculate backwards and forwards without difficulty, and is also an interesting one, as its final date, 650, is the beginning of the end which was consummated, as we shall see in the next section, by Laladitya just one century later.

Kashmir.

Asoka, 276 to 240 B.C.
Jaloka.
Damodara.
Hushka — Tartar Princes established Buddhism.
Jushka — Tartar Princes established Buddhism.
Kanishka — Tartar Princes established Buddhism.
Abhimanu, 79 A.D.?

Gonardya Dynasty.

Gonarda. Naga worship restored.
Vibhishana.
Indrajita.
Ravana.
Vibhishana.
Nara.
Siddha.
Utpalaksha.
Hiranyaksha.
Hiranyakula.
Vasukulo.
Mihirakula, invaded Ceylon 250?
Vaka.

Kshitinanda.
Vasunanda.
Nara.
Aksha.
Gopaditya, 330?
Gokarna.
Narendraditya.
Yudhishthira.

Aditya Dynasty.

Pratapaditya, kinsman of Vicramaditya I., 390.
Jalaukas.
Tunjina.
Vijaya.
Jayendra.
Arya Raja.

Gonardya Line restored.

Meghavahana invaded Ceylon, 472.
Pravarasena I.
Hiranya — Contemporaries of Vicramaditya.
Toramana — Contemporaries of Vicramaditya.
Matrigupta, viceroy under Vicramaditya II., 515.
Pravarasena II., invaded Siladitya of Gujerat, 560.
Yudhishthira II.
Nandravat.
Ranaditya.
Vikramaditya.
Baladitya.

Naga or Karkota Dynasty.

Durlabhaverddhana, 627.
Pratapaditya, 663.
Chandrapira, 713.
Parapira, 721.
Lalataditya, 725; died 761. Conquered
Yasoverna of Kanouje, and overran India.

When the ‘Raja Tarangini’ is spoken of, in a real Indian history, it is only in the sense of the French proverb—“Parmi les aveugles les borgnes sont rois.” It may be the best, but it is a very indifferent specimen of its class. Some of the few events it narrates are interesting and important, but they lose much of their value from the chronology to which they are attached being wilfully and systematically falsified. Even they, however, may become more valuable than they now appear, when the work is better edited than it has been hitherto. The earliest and best account we have of it is that of Professor Wilson, in the fifteenth volume of the ‘Asiatic Researches.’ The translation, afterwards published by Troyer in French, is fuller, no doubt, but is made from a less perfect manuscript, and is far less critical. Dr. Geo. Bühler, who is now in the valley, is said to have collected several additional and more complete MSS., from which it is understood he is preparing a new edition of the work. When this is done, we may be able to use it more profitably; meanwhile, for chronological purposes, we can only try and find an initial and final date, and with one or two intermediate synchronisms, try to bring the whole into an intelligible sequence; but so hopelessly is the chronology confused by its author, that this at present can only be effected by the application of a system of averages, which is, and always must be, a most unsatisfactory mode of procedure.

Rejecting at once as worthless or hopelessly lost all those parts of the history before the third century B.C., the first name we come to is the familiar one of Asoka, but here placed 1394 B.C., or more than 1000 years too early. It was in order to recover what was lost by this first error that Kalhana Pandit was forced to falsify all the dates up to the accession of the Karkota dynasty (A.D. 627), when they were known, even in his day, as certain within ten or twenty years. To effect this, he added ten, twenty, or thirty years here and there, as caprice dictated, till at last, losing patience, he gave one king, Ranaditya, in the 6th century, 300 years, instead of a possible thirty, and so made both ends meet! So history is written in the East!

After Asoka’s, the next name we meet in the lists with which we are familiar is that of Kanishka, and he plays so important a part in the history of Kashmir and Gandhara, that it would be of extreme interest if his date could be fixed with even approximate certainty. The ‘Raja Tarangini’ gives us no help in this matter. Generally, it has been assumed, principally on numismatic evidence, that he reigned either immediately before or immediately after the Christian Era;735 but between him and Asoka our lists afford only two names. If, therefore, we are to apply to this history the same logic the very learned have attempted to apply to dates of the Nirvana in the ‘Mahawanso,’ we must either bring down Asoka to the first century B.C., or take back Kanishka to the third. As neither process is admissible, nothing remains to be done but to admit that the record is imperfect, and that it is only from external evidence that these dates can be fixed with anything like certainty.

Even admitting that Hushka and Jushka were the father and grandfather of Kanishka, which I am inclined to think may be the case, instead of his brothers, as is usually supposed, it will hardly help us much—four reigns of insignificant princes in 200 years is nearly equally inadmissible, and will not help us to fix Kanishka’s date from Asoka’s.

Recently the question has been very much narrowed by the discovery of a number of dated inscriptions at Muttra and elsewhere, in which the name of Kanishka and his successor Huvishka frequently occur—the latter always following, never preceding, the former name. It is this that makes me believe that the Hushka of the chronicle was the father of Kanishka, and nothing in that case is so probable as that his successor should take his grandfather’s name. It is almost impossible he should take his uncle’s, and as the name of Jushka appears nowhere in the inscriptions, it is natural to assume that he had passed away some time before they were written.

Be this as it may, the following table gives the inscriptions as they were found by General Cunningham:— 736

In the Indo-Pali Alphabet.
Mathura.—	Kanishka.	Maharaja Kanishka. Samvat 9.
	Huvishka.	Maharaja Devaputra Huvishka. Samvat 39.
		Maharaja Rajatiraja Devaputra Huvishka. Samvat 47.
		Maharaja Huvishka. Samvat 48.
	Vasudeva.	Maharaja Rajatiraja Devaputra Vasu (deva). Samvat 44.
		Maharaja Vasudeva. Samvat 83.
		Maharaja Rajatiraja, Shahi, Vasudeva. Samvat 87.
		Raja Vasudeva. Samvat 98.
In the Bactrian-Pali Alphabet.
Other localities.—	Bahawalpur.	Maharaja Rajadiraja Devaputra Kanishka.
		Samvat 11, on the 28th of the (Greek) month of Dæsius.
	Manikyala Tope.	Maharaja Kaneshka, Gushana vasa samvardhaka.
		“Increaser of the dominion of the Gushans” (Kushans). Samvat 18.
	Wardak Vase.	Maharaja rajatiraja Huveshka. Samvat 51, 15th of Artemisius.

In addition to these Bactrian-Pali inscriptions, we have a record of a king called Moga (Moa?), on a copper plate from Taxila, wherein the Satrap Liako Kusuluko (Kozola?) speaks of the 78th year of the “great king, the great Moga,” on the 5th of the month of Panæmus.

In addition to the inscriptions bearing these names, General Cunningham quotes a great number of others, with dates in the same Samvat era, extending from the year 5 to the year 281, but without any kings’ names in them. Their purport, however, and the form of the characters used, he considers sufficient to show that they form a connected series dating from one and the same era, whatever that may be.

Here, therefore, we have an era, which we may safely assume was established by Kanishka, either from the beginning of his reign, or to mark some important event in it, and which was used after his time for two or three centuries at least. The question is, was that the era since known as that of Vicramaditya, dating from 56 B.C., or was it the Saka era of King Salivahana, dating 135 years after that? General Cunningham unhesitatingly adopts the former; and though it is not a subject to dogmatise upon, I am much more inclined to adopt the latter.

In the first place, because I can find no trace of any such era being in use before the cataclysm in A.D. 750. Bhau Daji states that he knows no inscription dated in it before the 11th century.737 General Cunningham says it was not used as early as 826,738 but, in another place, quotes an inscription in 754.739 I know of none earlier; and can trace no allusion to any king of the name of Vicramaditya in the first century B.C., and no events that could have given rise to an era in 56 B.C. No trace of it is found in Thibet, in Burmah, or Cambodia, and it never was heard of in Ceylon or Java. In all these countries the Saka era is known and was used, and it seems strange that an era established by so powerful a Buddhist king as Kanishka should have endured for two or three centuries, and then perished, without leaving a trace in any Buddhist country, and then, after the 8th century, been revived and adopted by the Brahmans for their chronology. It may be so; but it is so strange, it seems to require some strong evidence to make it credible, and none such has yet been advanced.

Hitherto Kanishka’s date has been assumed almost wholly on numismatic evidence, but it seems to me without sufficient grounds. In all the lists hitherto published,740 there are at least a dozen barbarian kings, several of whom, from the extent of their mintages, must have had long and prosperous reigns. To compress the whole into the sixty-four years that elapsed for the destruction of the Bactrian kingdom (120 B.C.), and the era of Vicramaditya (56 B.C.), seems to me a very strong measure, for which I can see no justification. To allow each, on an average, sixteen years’ reign, seems very much more probable, especially as many more names may yet be discovered—and even without them this would take us on to the Saka era (A.D. 79) without difficulty. One of them, Gondophares, as we shall presently see, reigned for twenty-six years at least.

The Roman consular coins found by M. Court, above referred to (ante, p. 79), were so worn as to be hardly legible, and though, therefore, they limit the antiquity of his reign certainly to this side of 44 B.C., they by no means prove that he was so early. On the contrary, the coins being worn, seems to prove that they were old before being buried; the probability is that they may have belonged to some pilgrim, or missionary, in the West, and had become sacred relics before they were enshrined. If Kanishka had merely wanted foreign coins, Greek or Roman, he might have had hundreds of perfect ones at his command. There must have been some other and holier motive for their deposit than merely to mark a date.

Every one has heard of the legend of St. Thomas the Apostle visiting the court of Gondophares, and, some add, being beheaded by his order. It may be a legend, and not one word of truth in it, but those who invented it in the second or third century must at least have had the means of knowing what was the name of the king who was on the throne of Gandhara at, or immediately after, the time of the Crucifixion. This name appears frequently on coins and inscriptions, and, from the numismatic evidence, has been placed by all as anterior to Kanishka, and I fancy that no one looking at the coins can well arrive at any other conclusion. If this is so, and he was reigning at any time between A.D. 33 and 50, Kanishka certainly belongs to the latter half of that century.

Against this it must be stated that both General Cunningham and Professor Dowson read an inscription of this king found at Takht-i-Bahi, as dated in his twenty-sixth year—one says in the 103rd,741 the other 100th,742 of the same Samvat as the inscription of Kanishka—a date which would answer perfectly for the legend. If this is so, there is an end of the controversy; but the stone is so worn, and the writing so indistinct, that I cannot see in the photographs of it what these gentlemen find there, and others are equally unable to do so; and besides this, it is such a wrench to all numismatic evidence to place the coins of Gondophares 100 years after those of Kanishka, that we must have more evidence than this imperfect inscription affords before we adopt its epochal date. The regnal date seems quite clear.

There is one other point of view from which this question may be regarded, but which it is difficult to express clearly without going to a greater length than our limits will admit of. It is the date of the third convocation, as the northern Buddhists call it—the fourth, according to the southern. It was held certainly under Kanishka’s auspices, and I cannot help fancying about the year 70 or 80 A.D. At that time, at least, Buddhism seems to have made a great stride in Thibet, in Burmah, and the East generally. It was about this time that it was fabled to have been first carried to Java, and about the time when it was first introduced in China.743 It looks so like one of those outbursts of missionary zeal that followed all the three previous convocations, that I cannot help fancying that this one was held in the latter half of the first century, and that the era of the king who held it was allowed in all Buddhist countries to supersede that of the Nirvana, which, as far as I can see, was the only one that had existed previously in India.

To argue this out fully would require more space than its importance for architectural purposes would justify; but its bearing on the age of the Gandhara monasteries is in some respects considerable. If they are as modern as I suspect them to be, the more modern date for Kanishka would accord better with the known facts than carrying his date up before the Christian era.

Proceeding onward, the next name we come to of any importance is Mahiracula, who is said to have invaded Ceylon. There is, however, no trace of any such invasion at that time, which, by the application of averages would be about 180 A.D., if Kanishka ruled before, and 250 if after, the Christian Era. His date would be interesting if it could be ascertained from his connexion with Baladitya, the king of Magadha, whose story Hiouen Thsang tells in such minute detail.744

The Aditya dynasty opens with a king who is said to have been a kinsman of Vicramaditya, and is evidently the grandfather of the great king of that name, who figures prominently in the next dynasty as the patron of Matrigupta. The story of the latter is told in great detail in the ‘Raja Tarangini,’ and is one of the most curious episodes in the history. He was sent to Kashmir four years before the death of Vicramaditya (550), and on hearing of his patron’s decease, resigned his viceroyalty, and retired to Benares, leaving the throne to his successor, Pravarasena.

In speaking of the dynasty of Malwa, only twenty or twenty-five years were allowed for the reign of Sri Harsha, and only eighty for the whole duration, from the fall of the Guptas, 470, to the death of the great Vicramaditya, 550, a period, it seems from the evidence of the ‘Raja Tarangini,’ it is impossible to contract. Pratapaditya, the kinsman of the first, was, we are told, the great-grandfather of Megavahana, the first king of the next dynasty, and then we have one more king before we reach Hiranya, who is said to have been contemporary with the second Vicramaditya. Of course there may have been considerable overlapping at both ends, and the lives of the Kashmiri kings may have been short; but as we have six intermediate kings in the one list between the two Vicramadityas, and only one in the other, it seems that the last could hardly have ascended the throne before 515, if so early.

One of the acts of Pravarasena was to invade Siladitya, the first Ballabhi king of that name ruling in Gujerat. We have not, it is true, any dated coins or inscriptions belonging to him, but we have of his next successor but one, Sri Dharasena II., 593 (ante, p. 730), so that any date between 550 and 570 would answer perfectly well for this war, and the fact of its being so is in itself almost sufficient to establish the correctness of the chronology we are now trying to explain.

Since I wrote last on the subject, a passage has been pointed out to me 745 in Rémusat’s ‘Nouveaux Mélanges Asiatiques’ (vol. i. p. 197), which enables us to fix the chronology of the Naga dynasty within a year or two for extreme deviation. It seems that the third king, Chandrapira, applied to the Chinese Emperor for assistance against the Arabs in 713, and that the Emperor conferred the title of King on him in or about 720. As he was on the throne only eight years and eight months, there is no room for deviation in this date, and it carries with it those of his predecessors and followers. It thus becomes clear that Durlabha I. was the king who was on the throne when Hiouen Thsang resided in the valley, 631-633, and also when he passed near it on his return home in 643, all which is perfectly consonant with what we find in his text; and it also fixes the date of Lalitaditya, one of the most important kings in the list, with almost absolute certainty, as 725-762.746

Without placing implicit reliance on all that is said in the ‘Raja Tarangini,’ with regard to the exploits of this king, or of his having overrun and conquered all India, from beyond the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, still a sufficient residuum of fact must remain to enable us to see that the troubles which had begun in 650, on the death of Siladitya of Canouge, had laid India prostrate at the feet of any daring adventurer.

From whatever side we approach it, we can hardly fail to perceive that a great revolution took place in India about the year 750. All the old dynasties are then swept away, and for 200 years we have nothing but darkness, and when light again dawns, about two centuries afterwards, the map is re-arranged, and new dynasties and new religions have taken the place of the old.

This reign, too, forms a most appropriate termination to the principal division of our architectural history. The coins of his rival, Yasoverman of Canouge, found in the great Tope at Manikyala, prove the completion of that great Buddhist monument, just 1000 years after the style had been inaugurated by the great Asoka, and in that thousand years all that is important in Buddhist architecture is included. The fact, too, of his being the builder of the great Naga temple at Marttand, the earliest, so far as I know, in Kashmir, marks the commencement of a new architectural era, the fruits of which we see when the curtain again rises. The Jaina religion, with its new style of temples, had entirely replaced Buddhist forms over the greater part of India, and the Vaishnava and Saiva religions reigned supreme everywhere else, in the forms in which we now find them, after the lapse of nearly another 1000 years’ duration. As, however, there are no chronological difficulties with regard to these later dynasties, the discussion of the dates of the kings’ reigns who built them has evidently no place in this Appendix.747

Era of Vicramaditya.

Before concluding this Appendix, I would like to be allowed to explain an hypothesis which, if it can be sustained, not only clears up what has hitherto been a great mystery, but gets rid of a quantity of rubbish which obscures the chronology of the period. It does not, however, alter any date, nor affect them further than, if true, it confirms some, which, if it prove groundless, are deprived of its support.

No one has yet been able to point to the name of Vicramaditya as belonging to any king in the first century B.C., or to any event likely to give rise to an era being dated from it.748 What, then, was the origin of the era dating from 56 B.C., and how did it arise and obtain its name?

My belief is that the solution of the mystery will be found in a passage in Albiruni, the meaning of which he did not profess to understand, combined with two or three passages in the ‘Raja Tarangini.’

The passage in Albiruni is to the following effect:—“L’ère de Saca, nommée par les Indiens Sacakala, est postérieure à celle de Vicramaditya de 135 ans. Saca est le nom d’un prince qui a régné sur les contrées situées entre l’Indus et la mer (le Golfe du Bengale). Sa résidence était placée au centre de l’Empire (Muttra?), dans la contrée nommée Aryavartha. Les Indiens le font naître dans une classe autre que celle des (Kchatrias?): quelques-uns prétendent qu’il était Soudra et originaire de la ville de Mansoura. Il y en a même qui disent qu’il n’était pas de race indienne, et qu’il tirait son origine des régions occidentales. Les peuples eurent beaucoup à souffrir de son despotisme, jusqu’à ce qu’il leur vînt du secours de l’Orient. Vicramaditya marcha contre lui, mit son armée en déroute, et le tua sur le territoire de Korour, situé entre Moultan et le Château de Louny. Cette époque devint célèbre, à cause de la joie que les peuples ressentirent de la mort de Saca, et on la choisit pour ère, principalement chez les astronomes.”749

It seems impossible to apply this narrative to any events happening in the first century B.C., not to mention the inherent absurdity of Vicramaditya establishing an era 56 B.C., and then 135 years afterwards defeating the Saka king on the banks of the Indus. If it meant anything, it might point to the origin of the Saka era, not that of Vicramaditya.

Turning from this to the ‘Raja Tarangini,’ we find the following passages in Troyer’s translation:—

“Ayant fait venir ensuite, d’un autre pays, Pratapaditya, parent du roi Vicramaditya, ils le sacrèrent souverain de l’Empire.

“D’autres induits en erreur ont écrit que ce Vicramaditya fut le même qui combattit les Çakas; mais cette version est rejetée.”750

A little further on we have: “Dans le même temps—the death of Hiranya—l’heureux Vicramaditya, appelé d’un autre nom Harcha, réunit comme empereur à Udjdjayini l’Empire de l’Inde sous un seul parasol....

“Employant la fortune comme moyen d’utilité, il fit fleurir les talents: c’est ainsi qu’encore aujourd’hui les hommes de talent se trouvent la tête haute au milieu des riches.

“Ayant d’abord détruit les Çakas, il rendit léger le fardeau de l’œuvre de Hari, qui doit descendre sur la terre pour exterminer les Mletchhas.”751

Before going further, it may be as well to point out what appears to be a fair inference from the above. That the first Vicramaditya, the friend of Pratapaditya, was so near in date to the second—he, in fact, appears to have been his grandfather—as to be confounded with him, and to have the name of Sakari applied to him, which in fact belonged to his grandson, the real destroyer of the Sakas.

My conviction is, that these paragraphs refer to one and the same event; and, assuming that the battle of Korûr was fought 544—the year before Vicramaditya sent Matrigupta to be his viceroy in Kashmir—what I believe happened was this: Some time after 750, when the Hindus were remodelling their history and their institutions, so as to mark their victory over the Buddhists, they determined on establishing two eras, which should be older than that of the Buddhists, A.D. 79, and for this purpose instituted one, ten cycles of sixty years each, before the battle of Korûr, and called it by the name of the hero of that battle, the most illustrious of their history; the other ten centuries, or 1000 years before the same date, and called it by the name of his father, Sri Harsha—a title he himself often bore in conjunction with his own name—the first consequently dated for 56 B.C., the second from 456. It need hardly be added that no Sri Harsha existed in the fifth century B.C., any more than a Vicramaditya in the first.

The co-existence of these eras may be gathered from the following passage in Albiruni:—

“On emploie ordinairement les ères de Sri Harscha, de Vicramaditya, de Saca, de Ballabha, et des Gouptas.” “D’après cela, en s’en tenant à l’an 400 de l’ère de Yezderdjed, on se trouve sous l’année 1488 de l’ère de Sri Harscha—l’an 1088 de l’ère de Vicramaditya—l’an 953 de l’ère de Saca—l’an 712 de l’ère de Ballabha, et de celle des Gouptas (A.D. 1032).”—‘Journal Asiatique,’ series iv. vol. iv. pp. 280, 286.

The Sri Harsha era, exactly 400 years before that of Vicramaditya, was avowedly conventional, and seems never to have come into use, and no further mention is made of it afterwards.

If this view of the matter can be sustained, the advantage will be not only that the date of the battle of Korûr, and of the expulsion of the Sakas, Hunas, Yavanas, &c., from India will be fixed with mathematical precision in 544, but that one of the greatest mysteries connected with the history of the period will be cleared up, and the revival of the Hindu religion relegated to a much later period. If, on the other hand, it can be shown that this view of the matter is not tenable, we shall lose these advantages, but it will require a great deal more than that to prove that Vicramaditya, or any Hindu king, reigned in the first century B.C. Buddhism was then in its palmiest state, and there is no trace of the Hindu religion then existing, and the expulsion of Sakas, Yavanas, and Hunas did not take place for long afterwards.

Be this as it may, having now cursorily run through the whole chronology, in so far as it admits of controversy, I feel very confident, on a calm review of the whole, that none of the important dates quoted above can be disturbed to a greater extent than say ten, or at the utmost twenty years—except, perhaps, that of Kanishka. From the Anjana epoch, 691 B.C., to the death of Lalitaditya, A.D. 761, all seems now tolerably clear and fixed, and, with a very little industry, minor blemishes might easily be swept away. If this were done, the chronology of mediæval India for the Buddhist period might be considered as fixed on a secure and immoveable basis of ascertained facts. The advantages of this being done can hardly be over-estimated for improving our knowledge of India generally, while, among other things, it would give a precision and solidity to all our speculations about that country, which, for want of it, have hitherto been generally so vague and unsatisfactory.

Appendix B

The following are the last of the twenty-four Buddhas, beginning with Dipankara I., who appeared to instruct and enlighten mankind, and to whom Sakya Muni succeeds in the present Kalpa:

22.	Kakusanda, born at Khémawatinagara. His Bo-tree the Sirisia (Sirisa accasia).
23.	Kanagamma, born at Sobhawatinagara. His Bo-tree the Udambara (Ficus glomerata).
24.	Kassyapa, born at Baranasi-nagara, Benares. His Bo-tree the Nigrodha (Ficus Indica).
	Gautama, born 623 B.C., at Kapilawasta. His Bo-tree Pipphala (Ficus religiosa). 752

Appendix C — The Twenty-Four Tirthankaras of the Jains

	Name.	Distinctive Sign.	Born.	Died.
1	Adinatha or Vrishabha	Bull	Ayodhya	Gujerat
2	Ajitanatha	Elephant	″	Mt. Sikhar, Chodri
3	Sambhunatha	Horse	Sawanta	″ Parisnath
4	Abhainandanatha	Monkey	Ayodhya	″
5	Sumatinatha	Chakwa (Red Goose)	″	″
6	Supadmanatha	Lotus	Kausambhi	″
7	Suparswanatha	Swastika	Benares	″
8	Chandraprabha	Crescent Moon	Chandripur	″
9	Pushpadanta	Crocodile	Kakendrapur	″
10	Sitalanatha	Tree or Flower	Bhadalpur	″
11	Sri Ansanatha	Rhinoceros	Sindh	″
12	Vasupadya	Buffalo	Champapuri	Champapuri
13	Vimalanatha	Boar	Kumpatapuri	Mt. Sikhar
14	Anantanatha	Porcupine	Ayodhya	″
15	Dharmmanatha	Thunderbolt	Ratanpuri	″
16	Santanetha	Antelope	Hastinapura	″
17	Kunthanatha	Goat	″	″
18	Aranatha	Fish	″	″
19	Mallinatha	Pinnacle	Mithila	″
20	Munisuvrata	Tortoise	Rajgriha	″
21	Naminatha	Lotus, with stalk	Mithila	″
22	Neminatha	Shell	Dwarika	Mt. Girnara
23	Parswanatha	Snake	Benares	Mt. Sikhar
24	Vardhamana or Mahavira	Lion	Chitrakot	Pawapuri

Footnotes

1 ‘History of Architecture in all Countries.’ 2nd ed. Murray, 1867.

2 ‘History of Architecture,’ vol. ii. pp. 445-756, Woodcuts 966-1163.

3 A distinguished German professor, Herr Kinkel of Zürich, in his ‘Mosaik zur Kunstgeschichte, Berlin, 1876,’ has lately adopted my views with regard to the age of Stonehenge without any reservation, though arriving at that conclusion by a very different chain of reasoning from that I was led to adopt.

4 The following brief résumé of the principal events in the ancient history of India has no pretensions to being a complete or exhaustive view of the subject. It is intended only as such a popular sketch as shall enable the general reader to grasp the main features of the story to such an extent as may enable him to understand what follows. In order to make it readable, all references and all proofs of disputed facts have been postponed. They will be found in the body of the work, where they are more appropriate, and the data on which the principal disputed dates are fixed will be found in an Appendix especially devoted to their discussion. Unfortunately no book exists to which the reader could with advantage be referred; and without some such introductory notice of the political history and ethnography the artistic history would be nearly, if not wholly, unintelligible.

5 ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xv. p. i.

6 Almost the only person who has of late done anything in this direction is Sir Walter Elliot. His papers in the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society’ and the ‘Madras Journal’ throw immense light on the subject, but to complete the task we want many workers instead of only one.

7 All this has been so fully gone into by me in my work on ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ pp. 63, et seqq., that it will not be necessary to repeat it here.

8 Dr. Caldwell, the author of the ‘Dravidian Grammar,’ is the greatest and most trustworthy advocate of this view.

9 ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ pp. 244-247.

10 In Arrian there is a curious passage which seems certainly to refer to this people. “During the space,” he says, “of 6042 years in which the 153 monarchs reigned, the Indians had the liberty of being governed by their own laws only twice, once for about 200 years, and after that for about 120 years.”—‘Indica,’ ch. ix. The Puranas, as may be supposed, do not help us to identify these two periods.

11 I cannot help fancying that they occupied some part of southern India, and even Ceylon, before the arrival of the Dravidians. It seems difficult otherwise to account for the connection between Behar and Ceylon in early ages, and the spread of Buddhism in that island leaping over the countries which had been Dravidianised.

12 I cannot help suspecting that the Gonds also belong to this northern race. It is true they speak a language closely allied to the Tamil; but language, though invaluable as a guide, is nearly useless as a test of affinity. The Romans imposed their language on all the diverse nationalities of Italy, France, and Spain. We have imposed ours on the Cornish, and are fast teaching the Irish, Welsh, and Highlanders of Scotland to abandon their tongue for ours, and the process is rapidly going on elsewhere. The manners and customs of the Gonds are all similar to those of the Coles or Khonds, though, it is true, they speak a Dravidian tongue.

13 The most pleasing of the histories of Buddha, written wholly from a European point of view, is that of Barthélemy St. Hilaire, Paris. Of those partially native, partly European, are those of Bishop Bigandet, from the Burmese legends, and the ‘Romantic History of Buddha,’ translated from the Chinese by the Rev. S. Beal. The ‘Lalita Vistara,’ translated by Foucaud, is more modern than these, and consequently more fabulous and absurd.

14 There may possibly be an error of forty to sixty years in this date; but, on the whole, that here given is supported by the greatest amount of concurrent testimony, and may, after all, prove to be minutely correct.

15 ‘Foé Koué Ki,’ xxv. ch. 11; ‘Mahawanso,’ v. p. 20; ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vi. 527.

16 One coin at least of the period is well known. It belongs to a king called Kunanda or Krananda, generally assumed to be one of the nine Nandas with whom this dynasty closed. In the centre, on one side, is a Dagoba with the usual Buddhist Trisul emblem over it, and a serpent below it; on the right the Sacred Tree, on the left a Swastica with an altar? on the other side a lady with a lotus (Sri?) with an animal usually called a deer, but from its tail more probably a horse, with two serpents standing on their tails over its head, which have been mistaken for horns. Over the animal is an altar, with an umbrella over it. In fact, a complete epitome of emblems known on the monuments of the period, but savouring much more of Tree and Serpent worship than of Buddhism, as it is now known. ‘Journal of the Koyal Asiatic Society,’ vol. i. (N.S.) p. 447, et seqq.

17 All these particulars, it need hardly be said, are taken from the 12th and 15th chapters of the ‘Mahawanso,’ confirmed by the inscriptions themselves and the relics found at Sanchi, to all which reference will be made hereafter.

18 Wilson’s ‘Hindu Drama,’ vol. xii. p. 151, et seqq., edition 1871.

19 Lassen, it is true, brings these dates down by ten years below where I have placed it. But he overlooks the fact that according to his hypothesis Asoka, in the sixteenth year of his reign, would claim Magas as his ally ten or twelve years after his death, which is improbable.

20 For complete details of these two monuments and the dates, the reader is referred to my ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ which is practically devoted to a description of these two monuments.

21 ‘Vie et Voyages de Hiouen Thsang,’ i. p. 215. It need hardly be said that all these particulars are taken from the three volumes relating his Indian experiences, translated by Stanislas Julien.

22 This does not apply to Orissa, which, from its remote situation, and having at that time no resident Buddhist population, seems to have escaped being drawn into the vortex of these troubles.

23 The best and most accepted account of these events is found in Vivien de St. Martin’s ‘Les Huns blancs,’ Paris, 1849.

24 Cunningham’s ‘Numismatic Chron.,’ viii. 175; ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vii. 704; Lassen’s ‘Indische Alterth.,’ ii. p. 24.

25 I wrote a paper stating the evidence in favour of this last view, which I intended should appear in the ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society.’ The evidence being, however, incomplete, it has only been printed for private circulation.

26 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. viii. p. 28.

27 Ibid., vol. v. p. 42.

28 The argument on which these assertions are founded is stated at length in the privately printed pamphlet alluded to on preceding page. It is too long to insert here, but, if not published before this work is complete, an abstract will be inserted in the Appendix.

29 ‘Journal of the Koyal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iii. p. 202.

30 For an exhaustive description of this subject see Priaulx, ‘India and Rome,’ London, 1873. My own impressions are, I confess, entirely in favour of the northern origin of the embassy. We are now in a position to prove an intimate connection between the north of India and Rome at that time. With the south it seems to have been only trade, but of this hereafter.

31 ‘Dravidian Grammar,’ second edition, London, 1875, p. 129, et seqq.

32 Sir Walter Elliot and others frequently speak of Buddhist monuments in the south. I have never, however, been able to see a photograph or drawing of any one except at Amravati and its neighbourhood.

33 In his ‘Elements of South Indian Palæography,’ Mr. Burnell, the last and best authority on the subject, divides the South Indian alphabet into Chera, Chalukya, and Vengi. The first, he states, appears in Mysore in the second half of the 5th century. The oldest specimen of the second he dates from the first half of that century. The third is more modern.

34 I am, of course, aware of the existence of a so-called Buddhist pagoda at Negapatam. It was, however, utilised by the British—for railway purposes, I believe—before it was photographed, so its history may for ever remain a mystery. On the spot it was apparently known as the Jaina (hence China) pagoda, which it may have been. To me it looks like the gopura of a small Hindu temple, but I have no real knowledge on the subject. See Yule’s ‘Marco Polo,’ vol. ii. p. 320, second edition.

35 ‘Storia della Scultura, dal suo risorgimento in Italia sino al secolo di Napoleone,’ Venezia, 1813.

36 “The ritual of the Veda is chiefly, if not wholly, addressed to the elements, particularly to fire.”—H. H. Wilson, ‘Asiatic Researches,’ xvii. p. 194; ibid., p. 614.

37 A list of the twenty-four Buddhas, with these particulars, is given in the introduction to Tumour’s ‘Mahawanso,’ p. 32. Representations of six or seven of these Bodhi-trees, with the names attached, have been found at Bharhut, showing at least that more than four were recognised in the time of Asoka. If the rail there were entire, it is probable representations of the whole might be found.

38 Stobæus, ‘Physica,’ Gaisford’s edition, p. 54. See also Priaulx, ‘India and Rome,’ p. 153.

39 Wilson’s ‘Ariana Antiqua,’ plates 10, 11.

40 A book has recently been published by the late Mr. Breeks, of the Madras Civil Service, on the primitive tribes of the Nilagiris, which gives a fuller account of these ‘rude stone monuments’ than any other yet given to the public. It can hardly, however, be accepted as a solution of the problem, which requires a wider survey than he was able to make.

41 The serpent of Siva is always a cobra, or poisonous snake, and used by him as an awe-inspiring weapon, a very different animal from the many-headed tutelary Naga, the guardian angel of mankind, and regarded only with feelings of love and veneration by his votaries. It may also be remarked that no tree is appropriated to Siva, and no trace of tree worship mingled with the various forms of adoration paid to this divinity—a circumstance in itself quite sufficient to distinguish this form of faith from that of the Dasyu group which pervaded the valley of the Ganges.

42 Page 41. Dr. Cornish, in the introduction to the ‘Madras Statistical Tables,’ p. 67, states this at only 30,000,000—a very considerable difference; but on the whole I am inclined to place faith in Dr. Caldwell’s figures.

43 ‘Madras Report,’ p. 90.

44 These remarks must not be taken as applying to sculpture also. It is quite true that no stone sculptures have yet been found in India of an earlier date than the age of Asoka; but, as will be seen in the sequel, the perfection the Indian artists had attained in stone sculpture when they executed the bas-reliefs at Bharhut (B.C. 200), shows a familiarity with the material that could only be attained by long practice.

45 No mention of temples, or, indeed, of buildings is, I believe, found in the Vedas, and though both are frequently alluded to, and described in the Epic Poems and the Puranas, this hardly helps us; first because, like all verbal descriptions of buildings, they are too vague to be intelligible, and secondly, because there is no proof that the passages containing these descriptions may not have been interpolated after—probably long after—the Christian Era.

46 I believe I was the first to ascertain these facts from a personal inspection of the monuments themselves. They were communicated to the Royal Asiatic Society in a paper I read on the ‘Rock-cut Temples of India,’ in 1842. Every subsequent research, and every increase of our knowledge, has tended to confirm those views to such an extent that they are not now disputed by any one acquainted with the literature of the subject, though some writers do still indulge in rhapsodies about the primæval antiquity of the caves, and their connection with those of Egypt, &c. Till all this is put on one side, no clear idea can be obtained of the true position of the art in India.

47 From two Sanscrit words, Dhatu, a relic, and Garbha (Pali, Gabbhan), the womb, receptacle, shrine of a relic. (Turnour, ‘Mahawanso,’ p. 5.) The word Pagoda is probably a corruption of Dagoba.

48 In Nepal, according to Hodgson, and, I believe, in Thibet, the monuments which are called Stupas in India are there called Chaityas. Etymologically, this is no doubt the correct designation, as Chaitya, like Stupa, means primarily a heap or tumulus, but it also means a place of sacrifice or religious worship—an altar from Chíta, a heap, an assemblage, a multitude, &c. (Monier Williams’ ‘Sanscrit Dictionary’ sub voce). Properly speaking, therefore, these caves ought perhaps to be called “halls containing a chaitya,” or “chaitya halls,” and this latter term will consequently be used wherever any ambiguity is likely to arise from the use of the simple term Chaitya.

49 These inscriptions have been published in various forms and at various times by the Asiatic Societies of Calcutta and London (‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vi. p. 566, et seqq.; ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. xii. p. 153, et seqq.) and in various other publications, but always mixed up with extraneous matters. It is, however, very much to be regretted that a carefully-edited translation is not issued in some separate form easily accessible to the general public. An absolutely authentic and unaltered body of Buddhist doctrine, as it stood 250 years before the birth of Christ, would be one of the most valuable contributions possible to the religious history of the modern world, and so much has been already done that the task does not seem difficult. Among other things, they explain to us negatively why we have so little history in India in these days. Asoka is only busied about doctrines. He does not even mention his father’s name; and makes no allusion to any historical event, not even those connected with the life of the founder of the religion. Among a people so careless of genealogy, history is impossible.

50 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vi. p. 794.

51 Ibid., plate 40.

52 Ibid., p. 969, et seqq.

53 These dimensions are taken from Capt. Burt’s drawings published in the ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. iii. plate 3.

54 ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ plates 9, 10, 10a, et passim.

55 ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. i. p. 274, plate 46.

56 ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ plates 1 and 5, and plates 89 and 90.

57 Ibid., plate 42.

58 In the description accompanying Daniell’s view of this cave he says: “On the pillars to the right, above the capital, is a group of lions, from the centre of which a few years since arose the chacra, or war disk of Vichnou, though not the least appearance of it at present remains.” On the left he remarked a figure of Buddha, which he mistook for Mahadeva, and in another part a row of bulls, and he adds: “The Chacra of Vichnou, the Mahadeva, and the bulls, seem not to favour the opinion of its being a temple of the Bhoods.” He was not aware how inextricably these religions were mixed up at the time when this cave was excavated, about A.D. 400.

59 Turnour in ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vii., p. 1013.
The fame of this distribution seems to have reached Europe at least as early as the 1st century of the Christian Era, inasmuch as Plutarch (‘Moralia,’ p. 1002, Dübner edition, Paris, 1841) describes a similar partition of the remains of Menander, among eight cities who are said to have desired to possess his remains; but as he does not hint that it was for purposes of worship, the significance of the fact does not seem to have been appreciated.

60 ‘Mahawanso,’ p. 26, ‘Hiouen Thsang,’ vol. ii. p. 417.

61 Account of the great bell at Rangoon, Hough, ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xiv. p. 270.

62 Abstracted from Turnour’s ‘Mahawanso,’ p. 4.

63 There may be an error in this date to the extent of its being from fifteen to twenty years too early.

64 The principal particulars of this story are contained in a Cingalese work called the ‘Daladavamsa,’ recently translated by Sir Mutu Comara Swamy. I have collected the further evidence on this subject in a paper I read to the Asiatic Society, and published in their ‘Journal’ (N.S.), vol. iii p. 132, et. seqq., and again in ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ p. 174, et. seqq.

65 The date being given as 245, Samvat has generally been assumed to be dated from the era of Vicramaditya. I am not aware, however, of any inscription of so early an age being dated from that era, nor of any Buddhist inscription in which it is used either then or thereafter.

66 The same fate had overtaken another tooth relic at Nagrak in northern India. Fa Hian, B.C. 400, describes it as perfect in his 13th chapter. ‘Hiouen Thsang,’ vol. ii. p. 97, describes the stupa as ruined, and the tooth having disappeared.

67 For a translation, &c., see ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. v. p. 33. See also Bird, ‘Historical Researches,’ Bombay, 1847.

68 ‘Foé Koué Ki,’ ch. xii. p. 77.

69 ‘Hiouen Thsang,’ vol. i. p. 83.

70 ‘Foé Koué Ki,’ p. 353. A detailed account of its transference from the true Gandhara—Peshawur—to the new Gandhara in Kandahar will be found in a paper by Sir Henry Rawlinson, ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. xi. p. 127.

71 Among the bas-reliefs of the Bharhut tope is one representing just such a domical roof as this (Woodcut No. 90). It is not, however, quite easy to make out its plan, nor to feel sure whether the object on the altar is a relic, or whether it may not be some other kind of offering.

72 ‘Bhilsa Topes, or Buddhist Monuments in Central India,’ Smith, Elder, and Co., 1854. One half of my work on ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ and forty-five of its plates, besides woodcuts, are devoted to the illustration of the great Tope; and numerous papers have appeared on the same subject in the ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society’ and elsewhere. A cast of the eastern gateway is in the South Kensington Museum.

73 ‘Mahawanso,’ p. 76. See also ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ p. 99, et seqq., where all this is more fully set out than is necessary here.

74 Cunningham, ‘Bhilsa Topes,’ p. 299, et seqq.

75 The Chandragupta inscription on the rail near the eastern gateway (‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. ii. p. 454) is evidently a subsequent addition, and belongs to the year A.D. 400.

76 These views, plans, &c., are taken from a Memoir by Capt. J. D. Cunningham, ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ August, 1847.

77 As all the particulars regarding all these topes, except the great one and No. 3 of Sanchi, are taken from Gen. Cunningham’s work entitled ‘Bhilsa Topes,’ published by Smith and Elder, in one volume 8vo., in 1854, it has not been thought necessary to repeat the reference at every statement.

78 These dimensions and details are taken from Gen. Cunningham’s ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. i. p. 107, et seqq.

79 ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. ix. p. 203.

80 See also paper by Vesy Westmacott, ‘Calcutta Review,’ 1874, vol. lix. p. 68.

81 ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. i. p. 17.

82 Ibid., p. 19.

83 ‘Hiouen Thsang,’ vol. iii. p. 60.

84 Buchanan Hamilton was told by the priests on the spot, in 1811, that it was planted there 2225 years ago, or B.C. 414, and that the temple was built 126 years afterwards, or in 289. Not a bad guess for Asoka’s age in a locality where Buddhism has been so long forgotten. Montgomery Martin’s ‘Eastern India,’ vol. i. p. 76.

85 ‘Hiouen Thsang,’ vol. ii. pp. 464-468.

86 ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. i. p. 5.

87 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ 1834, vol. iv. p. 214. See also Cunningham, ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. i. p. 5, et seqq.

88 ‘Hiouen Thsang, Festival of the three Religions at Allahabad in 643,’ vol. i. p. 254.

89 A view of it is given, ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. iv. p. 122.

90 Beal’s ‘Fa Hian,’ p. 35.

91 ‘Vie et Voyages de Hiouen Thsang,’ vol. i. p. 83.

92 De Guigne’s ‘Histoire des Huns,’ vol. ii. p. 40, et seqq.

93 ‘Mahawanso,’ p. 71.

94 ‘Ariana Antiqua,’ p. 43.

95 ‘Ariana Antiqua,’ plate 10.

96 Vassilief, ‘Le Bouddhisme, ses Dogmes,’ &c., Paris, 1865, p. 31, et passim. He spells the words Makhaiana and Khinaiana.

97 Beal’s translation, p. 26.

98 Honigberger, ‘Reise.’

99 Mr. Masson’s account was communicated to Professor Wilson, and by him published in his ‘Ariana Antiqua,’ with lithographs from Mr. Masson’s sketches which, though not so detailed as we could wish, are still sufficient to render their form and appearance intelligible.

100 The length of time over which these coins range—more than 200 years—is sufficient to warn us what caution is requisite in fixing the date of buildings from their deposits. A tope cannot be earlier than the coins deposited in it, but, as in this case, it may be one or two hundred years more modern.

101 ‘Ariana Antiqua,’ p. 109.

102 Thomas in ‘Prinsep,’ vol. i. p. 144.

103 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. iii. p. 559.

104 Thomas in ‘Prinsep,’ p. 148.

¹⁰⁵ ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. ii. p. 167, plate 65.

106 Thomas’s ‘Prinsep,’ vol. i. p. 94.

107 In the text it is certainly printed “three” with a reference to 19 in the plate 21 of vol. iii. The latter is undoubtedly a misprint, and I cannot help believing the former is so also, as only one fragment is figured; and Prinsep complains more than once of the state of the French MS. from which he was compiling his account. I observe that General Cunningham, in his volume just received, adopts the same views. At p. 78, vol. v., he says: “I have a strong suspicion that General Ventura’s record of three Sassanian coins having been found below deposit B may be erroneous.”

108 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. iii. plate 21, fig. 18.

109 ‘Foé Koué Ki,’ chap. xiii.

110 ‘Fa Hian,’ Beal’s translation, p. 32. ‘Hiouen Thsang,’ vol. i. p. 89.

111 ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. ii. p. 172.

112 ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ Preface to the First Edition.

113 ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. i. p. 10.

114 ‘Memorandum,’ dated 13th April, 1874, printed by the Bengal Government, but not published.

115 ‘Voyages dans les Contrées Occidentales,’ vol. i. p. 465.

116 ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. i. plates 8 to 11.

117 For this last determination, see ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ p. 99, et seqq.

118 It is to be hoped that when Gen. Cunningham publishes the volume he is preparing on the Bharhut Tope, he will add photographs of the pillars of this rail. It would add immensely to the value of his work if it afforded the means of comparing the two. Some illustrations of the sculpture from Major Kittoe’s drawings will be found in ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ woodcuts 7, 20, 24. Two of them are reproduced here, the first representing a man on his knees before an altar worshipping a tree, while a flying figure brings a garland to adorn it. The other represents a relic casket, over which a seven-headed Naga spreads his hood, and over him an umbrella of state. There are, besides, two trees in a sacred enclosure, and another casket with three umbrellas (Woodcuts Nos. ²⁵, ²⁶). They are from drawings by Major Kittoe.

119 ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ p. 99, et seqq.

120 When I wrote my work on ‘Tree and Serpent Worship’ nothing was practically known as to the age of the jatakas, or the early form in which they were represented; much, therefore, that was then advanced was, or at least appeared to others to be, mere guess work, or daring speculation. It is, consequently, no small satisfaction to me to find that this subsequent discovery of a monument 200 years earlier does not force me to unsay a single word I then said. On the contrary, everything I then advanced is confirmed, and these inscriptions render certain what before their discovery was necessarily sometimes deficient in proof.

121 The following outline (Woodcut No. 28, on the next page) of one of the bas-reliefs on a pillar at Bharhut may serve to convey an idea of the style of art and of the quaint way in which the stories are there told. On the left, a king with a five-headed snake-hood is represented, kneeling before an altar strewn with flowers, behind which is a tree (Sirisa Accasia?) hung with garlands. Behind him is an inscription to this effect, “Erapatra the Naga Raja worships the Divinity (Bhagavat).” Above him is the great five-headed Naga himself, rising from a lake. To its right a man in the robes of a priest standing up to his middle in the water, and above the Naga a female genius, apparently floating in the air. Below is another Naga Raja, with his quintuple snake-hood, and behind him two females with a single snake at the back of their heads—an arrangement which is universal in all Naga sculpture. They are standing up to their waists in water. If we may depend on the inscription below him, this is Erapatra twice over, and the females his two wives. I should, however, rather be inclined to fancy there were two Naga Rajas represented with their two wives.
This bas-relief is further interesting as being an epitome of my work on ‘Tree and Serpent Worship.’ As expressing in the shortest possible compass nearly all that is said there at length, it will also serve to explain much that is advanced in the following pages. As it is 200 years older than anything that was known when that book was written, it is a confirmation of its theories, as satisfactory as it is complete.

122 ‘Mahawanso,’ Introduction, p. 32.

123 Outlines of these sculptures are given in General Cunningham’s third volume of his ‘Reports,’ plate 6. I have photographs of the whole, which represent what is omitted in the lithographs.

124 General Cunningham collected and translated 196 inscriptions from this tope, which will be found in his work on the Bhilsa Topes, p. 235, et seqq., plates 16-19.

125 The details from which these determinations are arrived at will be found in ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ p. 98, et seqq. It is consequently not necessary to repeat them here.

126 It is very much to be regretted that when Lieut. Cole had the opportunity he did not take a cast of this one instead of the eastern. It is far more complete, and its sculptures more interesting.

127 For details of these sculptures and references, I must refer the reader to my work on ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ where they are all represented and described in great detail. Sculptures do not, strictly speaking, belong to this work, and, except for historical purposes, are not generally alluded to.

128 They must certainly have been very common in India, for, though only one representation of them has been detected among the sculptures at Sanchi (‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ plate 27, fig. 2), at least ten representations of them are found at Amravati, plates 59 (fig. 2), 60 (fig. 1), 63 (fig. 3), 64 (fig. 1), 69, 83 (fig. 2), 85 (figs. 1 and 2), 96 (fig. 3), 98 (fig. 2), and no doubt many more may yet be found.

129 ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ Appendix I. p. 270.

130 In Burmah at the present day a roll precisely similar to this, formed of coloured muslin, distended by light bamboo hoops, is borne on men’s shoulders in the same manner as shown here, on each side of the procession that accompanies a high priest or other ecclesiastical dignitary to the grave.

131 For the reasons of the following determination and other particulars, the reader is referred to my work on ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ where the whole are set out at length. A short account of the tope will also be found in the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iii. (N. S.) p. 132, et seqq.

132 ‘Histoire de Hiouen Thsang,’ traduite par Julien, vol. i. p. 188.

133 It is probable that a tolerably correct idea of the general exterior appearance of the buildings from which these caves were copied may be obtained from the Raths (as they are called) of Mahavellipore (described further on, p. 328). These are monuments of a later date, and belonging to a different religion, but they correspond so nearly in all their parts with the temples and monasteries now under consideration, that we cannot doubt their being, in most respects, close copies of them. Curiously enough, the best illustrations of some of them are to be found among the unpublished sculptures of the Bharhut Tope.

134 The only buildings in India I know of that gave the least hint of the external forms or construction of these halls are the huts of the Todas on the Nilgiri Hills. In a work recently published by the late Mr. Breeks, of the Madras Civil Service, he gives two photographs of these dwellings, plates 8 and 9. Their roofs have precisely the same elliptical forms as the chaitya with the ridge, giving the ogee form externally, and altogether, whether by accident or design, they are miniature chaitya halls. Externally they are covered with short thatch, neatly laid on. Such forms may have existed in India two thousand years ago, and may have given rise to the peculiarities of the chaitya halls, but it is, of course, impossible to prove it.

135 ‘Illustrations of the Rock-cut Temples of India,’ 1 vol., text 8vo., with folio plates. Weale, London, 1845.

136 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iii. pt. ii. p. 36, et seqq., and vol. iv. p. 340, et seqq.

137 Cunningham, ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. i. p. 45.

138 At Kondooty, near Bombay, there is a chaitya cave of much more modern date, which possesses a circular chamber like this. In the older examples it is probable a relic or some sacred symbol occupied the cell; in the later it may have been an image of Buddha. No plans or details of the Kondooty temple have, so far as I know, been published. I speak from information derived from MS. drawings.

139 General Cunningham (‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. i. p. 45) and others are in the habit of calling this an Egyptian form. This it certainly is not, as no Egyptian doorway had sloping jambs. Nor can it properly be called Pelasgic. The Pelasgi did use that form, but derived it from stone constructions. The Indians only obtained it from wood.

140 A very detailed account of all these caves will be found in Gen. Cunningham’s ‘Archæological Report’ for 1861-62.

141 From a photograph and an unpublished paper by Professor Bhandarkur, read before the Oriental Congress.

142 From Bhandarkur’s paper, ubi supra.

143 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. v. p. 55.

144 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. v. pp. 152-3.

145 A few years ago it was reported that this screen was in danger of falling outwards, and I wrote repeatedly to India begging that something might be done to preserve it; but I have never been able to learn if this has been attended to. Only a small portion of the original ribbing of the Bhaja cave now remains. That of the Bedsa cave has been destroyed within the last ten or twelve years (‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. ix. p. 223); and it would be a thousand pities if this, which is the only original screen in India, were allowed to perish when a very small outlay would save it. Like the Iron pillar at Delhi which never rusts, teak wood that does not decay though exposed to the atmosphere for 2000 years, is a phenomenon worth the attention not only of antiquaries, but of natural philosophers.

146 For further particulars regarding the Ajunta caves, the reader is referred to a paper I wrote in the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ 1842, and republished afterwards with a folio volume of plates to illustrate it.

147 These inscriptions are translated in Bhau Dajis’ paper on the Ajunta inscriptions, ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. viii. p. 63, as if found in cave 2. On the accompanying plate they are described as one on cave 10, the other on cave 12.

148 Kittoe in ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ March, 1847, plate 6.

149 Sir Charles Mallet, in the second volume of the ‘Bombay Literary Transactions,’ quotes a tradition that the Ellora caves were excavated by a Raja Eelu, 1000 years before his day. This might be true if applied to the Brahmanical Kailas, but hardly to any Buddhist cave in the series.

150 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. v. p. 14.

151 Loc. cit. p. 25.

152 Introduction to ‘Mahawanso,’ p. 30.

153 See Appendix.

154 A tolerably correct representation of these sculptures is engraved in Langle’s ‘Hindostan,’ vol. ii. p. 81, after Niebuhr. The curious part of the thing is, that the Buddhist figures of the Karli façade are not copied here also, from which I would infer, as well as from their own intrinsic evidence, that they were more modern than even this cave.

155 For further particulars regarding this cave, the reader is referred to my work on the ‘Rock-cut Temples of India,’ p. 36, plates 11 and 12.

156 The plates in Gen. Cunningham’s ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. ii. pl. 70 and 74, are on too small a scale to be of much use. I have not myself visited these caves.

157 The particulars of the architecture of these caves are taken from Gen. Cunningham’s report above alluded to. I entirely agree with him as to their age, and am surprised Dr. Impey could be so mistaken regarding them. ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. v. p. 336, et seqq.

158 Throughout this work the term “Vihara” is applied only to monasteries, the abodes of monks or hermits. It was not, however, used in that restricted sense only, in former times, though it has been so by all modern writers. Hiouen Thsang, for instance, calls the Great Tower at Buddh Gaya a vihara, and describes similar towers at Nalanda, 200 and 300 feet high, as viharas. The ‘Mahawanso’ also applies the term indiscriminately to temples of a certain class, and to residences. My impression is that all buildings designed in storeys were called viharas, whether used for the abode of priests or to enshrine relics or images. The name was used to distinguish them from stupas or towers, which were always relic shrines, or erected as memorials of places or events, and never were residences or simulated to be such, or contained images, till the last gasp of the style, as at Kholvi. At present this is only a theory; it may, before long, become a certainty. Strictly speaking, the residences ought probably to be called Sangharamas, but, to avoid multiplication of terms, vihara is used in this work as the synonym of monastery, which is the sense in which it is usually understood by modern authors.

159 Vol. iv., Woodcuts Nos. 89, 90.

160 Beal’s ‘Fa Hian,’ p. 139, ‘Hiouen Thsang,’ vol. iii. p. 102.

161 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. vi. (N.S.) p. 257, et seqq.

162 ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. i. p. 28, plate 16.

163 ‘Hiouen Thsang,’ vol. i. p. 151.

164 ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. i. pp. 28-36, plate 16.

165 Now in private hands in Birmingham.

166 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. xxxiii. p. 360, et seqq.

167 Ibid., vol. xxiii. p. 469, et seqq.

168 For this and the other Sarnath remains see Cunningham’s ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. i. p. 114, et seqq., plates 32-34.

169 These dimensions are from plate 42, ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ for 1847, by the late Capt. Kittoe.

170 This inscription first attracted the attention of Stirling, and a plate representing it very imperfectly is given in the 15th volume of the ‘Asiatic Researches.’ It was afterwards copied by Kittoe, and a translation, as far as its imperfection admitted, made by Prinsep, with the assistance of his pundits, and published. ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vi. p. 1080, et seqq.

171 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vi. p. 1073, plate 54.

172 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vi. p. 1075.

173 There is a very faithful drawing of this bas-relief by Kittoe in the ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vii. plate 44. But casts of all these sculptures were taken some three years ago by Mr. Locke, of the School of Design, Calcutta, and photographs of these casts, with others of the caves, are now before me. Reduced copies of some of these were published on plate 100, ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ 2nd edition, 1873.

174 That there were Yavanas in Orissa about this time is abundantly evident, from the native authorities quoted by Stirling—‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xv. p. 258, et seqq. These represent them as coming from Kashmir, and Babul Des, or Persia, and one account names the invader as Hangsha Deo, which looks very like Hushka, or Huvishka (the brother of Kanishka), whose inscriptions are found at Muttra.—Cunningham, ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. ii. p. 32, et seqq.

175 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vii. plate 42. ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ plate 100.

176 ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ plate 100, p. 105.

177 There may have been a structural dagoba attached to the series, which may have disappeared.

178 Wilson, ‘Ariana Antiqua,’ plate 10.

179 These inscriptions were first published by Lieut. Brett, with translations by Dr. Stevenson, in the fifth volume of the ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ p. 39, et seqq., plates 1 to 16. They were afterwards revised by Messrs. E. W. and A. A. West in the eighth volume of the same journal, p. 37, et seqq., and translated by Professor Bhandarkar in a paper not yet published, but to which I have had access. I have also been assisted by manuscript plans and notes by Mr. Burgess; and, though I have not seen the caves myself, I fancy that I can realise all their main features without difficulty.

180 Professor Bhandarkar, in his paper on these inscriptions, passes over the inscriptions in the interior of the chaitya, without alluding to them in any way. Is it that there is any mistake about them? and that the cave is a century more modern than they would lead us to suppose? The answer is probably to be obtained on the spot, and there only.

181 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. viii. p. 40.

182 Ante, p. 129. See also plate 11 of my folio work on the ‘Rock-cut Temples,’ where the pillars of the two caves are contrasted as here.

183 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. ix. p. 16.

184 ‘Journal Bombay Branch Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. viii. p. 42.

185 Ib., vol. v. p. 49.

186 ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ woodcut 12, p. 92.

187 Ibid., plates 81, 91, 97, et passim.

188 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. v. p. 55.

189 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. viii. p. 56.

190 The caves, it may be explained, were numbered consecutively, like houses in a street, beginning at the north end, the first cave there being No. 1, the last accessible cave at the southern end being No. 26.

191 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. viii. p. 56. See also, ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. v. p. 726.

192 Curiously enough, on the roof of this cave there are four square compartments representing the same scene, in different manners—a king, or very important personage, drinking out of a cup with male and female attendants. What the story is, is not known, but the persons represented are not Indians, but Persians, and the costumes those of the Sassanian period. Copies of these pictures by Mr. Griffith are now exhibited in the India Museum at Kensington.

193 ‘Rock cut Temples,’ pl. 8.

194 Eight large lithographic plates illustrating these caves will be found in my work on the ‘Rock-cut Temples of India,’ 1843. In 1864 I published a small volume containing fifty-eight photographic illustrations of the same series. Reductions of some of the more important frescoes, copied by Major Gill, were fortunately published by Mrs. Speir in her ‘Life in Ancient India,’ in 1856; and since then Mr. Griffith, of the School of Arts at Bombay, has been employed to recover, as far as it can now be done, the frescoes destroyed in the Crystal Palace fire. If he is successful, these curious paintings may still be made available for the history of art in India. It is feared, however, that the means taken by Major Gill to heighten their colour before copying them, and the destructive tendencies of British tourists, have rendered the task to a great extent a hopeless one.

195 Ante, p. 59.

196 I possess a large collection of MS. drawings of these caves, made for Daniell by his assistants in 1795-6.

197 ‘Voyage en Arabie et d’autres pays circonvoisins,’ 1776-80. Most of the plates referring to these caves were reproduced by Langles in his ‘Monuments d’Hindostan,’ vol. ii., plates 77, et seqq.

198 Schlagintweit, ‘Buddhismus in Thibet,’ plate 3.

199 Plans of these caves, with descriptions and some architectural details, will be found in Gen. Cunningham’s ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. ii. pp. 270-288, plates 77-84. Those of Dhumnar I have seen myself, but till those of Kholvi are photographed we shall not be able to speak positively regarding them; the General’s drawings are on too small a scale for that purpose.

200 The Kholvi group is situated more than sixty miles north of Ujjain, that of Dhumnar about twenty-five further north, and deeper into the Central Indian jungles.

201 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iv. pp. 287-291.

202 There is a representation of this cave in Dr. Bird’s book, plate 16, but so badly done that it requires being told what is intended in order to find it out.

203 I have for some time possessed photographs of about one hundred objects obtained in these excavations, principally those in the Lahore Museum; and latterly I have received from Gen. Cunningham twenty large photographic plates, representing 165 separate objects recently obtained in a more methodical manner by himself, principally from Jamalgiri. These plates are, as I understand, to form part of the illustrations of a work he intends publishing on the subject. When it is in the hands of the public there will be some data to reason upon. At present there is scarcely anything to which a reference can be made.

204 When Gen. Cunningham was selecting specimens in the Lahore Museum, to be photographed for the Vienna Exhibition, he complains that he could only ascertain the “find spot” of five or six out of the whole number—500 or 600. It is therefore to be regretted that, when publishing a list with descriptions of the 165 objects discovered by himself (‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. v. pp. 197-202), he does not mention where they came from, and gives the dimensions of a few only.

205 The mode in which the excavations have recently been conducted by Government has been to send out a party of sappers in the cold weather to dig, but the officer in charge of the party has been the subaltern who happened to be in command of the company at the time. A new officer is consequently appointed every year, and no one has ever been selected because he had any experience in such matters or any taste for such pursuits. What has been done has been done wonderfully well, considering the circumstances under which it was undertaken; but the result on the whole is, as might be expected, painfully disappointing. Quite recently, however, it is understood that Gen. Cunningham has taken charge of the excavations, and we may consequently hope that in future these defects of arrangement will be remedied.

206 In the fifth volume of his ‘Archæological Reports’ just received, Gen. Cunningham assumes that both these were stupas of the ordinary character. They may have been so, but both having steps up to them would seem to militate against that assumption. The circular one is only 22 ft., the square one 15 ft. in diameter, and there is consequently no room on either for a procession-path round the dome, if it existed; and, if this is so, of what use could the steps be? Lieut. Crompton, who excavated the Jamalgiri monastery, is clearly of opinion that it was a platform—see page 2 of his report, published in the ‘Lahore Gazette,’ 30th August, 1873. To prevent misunderstanding, I may mention that Gen. Cunningham, in his plate No. 14, by mistake, ascribes the plan to Sergt. Wilcher, instead of to Lieut. Crompton.

207 ‘Embassy to Thibet,’ p. 317.

208 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. vii., No. 21, p. 116, et seqq.

209 These have been removed, and are now in Gen. Cunningham’s possession at Simla, I believe. He has sent me photographs of twelve of them.

210 ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ plates 24 (fig. 3) and 36 (fig. 1).

²¹¹ The modillion cornice, though placed on the capital in the photograph, belongs in reality to another part of the building.

212 ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. v. pp. 49 and 196.

213 ‘The Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis Restored.’ By the Author. Part II. sect. i., et passim.

214 One curious peculiarity of these Gandhara sculptures is that they generally retain the sloping jamb on each side of their openings. In India and in a structural building this peculiarity would certainly fix their age as anterior to the Christian Era. In Gandhara it is only found in decorative sculpture, and retained apparently from association. It does not, at all events, appear as if any argument could be based on its use as there employed.

215 Assuming that his age has been correctly ascertained, which I am beginning, however, to doubt exceedingly.

216 I possess photographs of about 300 objects from the Lahore and other museums, and have had access to about as many actual examples—of an inferior class, however—in collections in this country, but even they barely suffice for the purpose.

217 ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. v., Introduction, p. vi. See also Appendix to the same volume, pp. 193-4.

218 Texier and Pullan, ‘Byzantine Architecture,’ London, 1864, pls. 22-25 and pl. 44.

219 De Voguë, ‘Syrie Centrale,’ passim.

220 By a curious slip of the pen General Cunningham (‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. v. p. 193) places “These Roman examples in the baths of Caracalla in the beginning of the first century of the Christian Era, almost contemporary,” he adds, “with that which I assign to the finest Indo-Corinthian examples just described, namely, the latter half of the first century B.C.” This is so evidently a mere slip that I would not allude to it were it not that much of his argument for the early age of these sculptures is based upon this coincidence.

221 There is a capital at Siah, in Syria, on which a bust is introduced, which may be as early as the Christian Era, but it is a solitary example not repeated afterwards, so far as I know. See ‘Syrie Centrale,’ by De Voguë, plate 3.

222 In Beal’s introduction to ‘Fa Hian,’ p. 18, he mentions, on Chinese authority, which is much more reliable than Indian, that a statue of Buddha was brought to China from Kartchou (?) in B.C. 121. On asking Mr. Beal to look carefully into the authorities for this statement, he reports them to be hazy in the extreme, and not to be relied upon.

223 I believe it is generally admitted that the rédaction of the ‘Mahawanso,’ and other Ceylonese scriptures made in Buddhaghosha’s time, A.D. 408-420, is the oldest authentic Buddhist work we now possess. They, like the ‘Lalita Vistara,’ and other works, are founded on older works of course, but the earlier forms have been lost, and what we have is what the writers of the 5th and subsequent centuries thought they ought to be.

224 Unfortunately no Indian list of these patriarchs has yet come to light. Those we have are derived from Japanese or Chinese sources, and are all tainted with the falsification which the Chinese made in Buddhist chronology by putting Buddha’s date back to about 1000 B.C., in order that he might have precedence of Confucius in antiquity! for so it is that history is written in the East. For a list of the twenty-eight known patriarchs, see Lassen, ‘Indische Alterthumskunde,’ vol. ii., Beilage ii. p. 1004.

225 The capitals of these pillars are so ruined that it is difficult to speak very confidently about them. I have drawings of them by Col. Yule and by Mr. W. Simpson, and latterly Gen. Cunningham has published drawings of them, ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. v. pl. 24. None of them are quite satisfactory, but this must arise from the difficulty of the task.

226 No complete history of the ivories has been published which is sufficient for reference on this subject. Gori’s are too badly engraved for this purpose; but the first twelve plates in Labarte’s ‘Histoire de l’Art’ are perfect as far as they go. So are the plates in Maskell’s ‘Catalogue of the South Kensington Museum,’ and those published by the Arundel Society; but it is to the collection of casts in these two last-named institutions that the reader should refer for fuller information on the subject.

227 I purchased from his artist, Mr. Nicholl, and possess all the original sketches from which the illustrations of his book were engraved.

228 When the present governor was appointed hopes ran high that this unsatisfactory state of our knowledge would be cleared away. The stars, however, in their courses have warred against archæology in Ceylon ever since he assumed sway over the island, and the only residuum of his exertions seems to be that a thoroughly competent German scholar, Herr Goldsmidt, is occupied now in copying the inscriptions, which are numerous, in the island. These, however, are just what is least wanted at present. In India, where we have no history and no dates, inscriptions are invaluable, and are, in fact, our only sources of correct information. In Ceylon, however, they are, for archæological purposes, comparatively unimportant. What is there wanted are plans and architectural details, and these, accompanied by general descriptions and dimensions, would, with the photographs we possess, supply all we now want. Any qualified person accustomed to such work could supply nearly all that is wanted in twelve months, for the two principal cities at least; but I despair of seeing it done in my day.

229 Beal’s translation, p. 157.

230 The artist who made the drawings for Sir E. Tennent’s book, not knowing what a serpent-hood was, has in almost all instances so drawn it as to be unrecognisable. The photographs, however, make it quite clear that all had serpent-hoods.

231 The cubit of Ceylon is nearly 2 ft. 3 in.

232 In the photographs it is called an altar, which it certainly was not.

233 ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ pl. 19. In some respects it resembles the Woodcuts Nos. 34 and 35.

234 Since the drawing was made from which this cut is taken, it has been thoroughly repaired and made as unlike what it was as can well be conceived.

235 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal’ for March, 1847, p. 218.

236 ‘Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iii. p. 474, and ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. xiii. p. 168.

237 I am afraid this is no longer true. From what I learn, I fear it has been repaired.

238 ‘Mahawanso,’ Turnour’s translation, p. 163.

239 Loc. cit., p. 235.

240 At Amravati the Zoophorus (Woodcut No. 36) consisted of the same animals, I believe, but it is not complete, no fragment of the horse having been brought home, and generally, it seems that this limited menagerie is to be found in all Buddhist works.

241 Any architect of ordinary ability could in a week easily make the plans and drawings requisite to give us all the information required respecting these halls in Anuradhapura. I am not sure that Capt. Hogg has not already done all that is wanted, but he was sent off so suddenly to St. Helena that no time was allowed him to communicate his information to others, even if he had it.

242 Singularly enough, the natives of Behar ascribe the planting of their Bo-tree to Duttagaimuni, the pious king of Ceylon.—See Buchanan Hamilton’s ‘Statistics of Behar,’ p. 76, Montgomery Martin’s edition.

243 According to Mr. Rhys Davids, the proper name of the city is Pulastipura (‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. vii. (N.S.) p. 156), and its modern name Topawœwa or Topawa. As, however, that here given is the only one by which it is known in English literature, it is retained.

244 ‘Christianity in Ceylon,’ Murray, 1850; ‘An Account of the Island of Ceylon,’ 2 vols., Longmans, 1859. Since then Mr. Lawton’s and Capt. Hogg’s photographs have added considerably to the precision but not to the extent of our knowledge. Not one plan or dimension, and no description, so far as I know, have reached this country.

245 Among Capt. Hogg’s photographs are two colossal statues of Buddha, one at Seperawa, described as 41 ft. high, the other at a place called Aukana, 40 ft. high; but where these places are there is nothing to show. They are extremely similar to one another, and, except in dimensions, to that at the Gal Vihara.

246 They occur also on Asoka’s pillars in the earliest known sculptures in India (Woodcut No. 6). It was the cackling of these sacred geese which is said to have saved the Capitol at Rome from being surprised by the Gauls.

247 The preceding woodcut, from Sir E. Tennent’s book, is far from doing justice to the building or to Mr. Nicholl’s drawings, which are before me; but among the half dozen photographs I possess of it not one is sufficiently explanatory to convey a correct idea of its peculiarities, and, after all, without plans or dimensions, it is in vain to attempt to convey a correct idea of it to others.

248 ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. iii. p. 31, et seqq., plates 13 and 15. As neither photographs nor even drawings of these figures are yet available, we are still unable to speak of their style of art, or to feel sure of their authenticity; nor has the era from which these dates are to be calculated been fixed with anything like certainty. The evidence, however, as it now stands, is strongly in favour of their being what they are represented to be.

249 Vol. i. p. 359, Woodcut No. 241.

250 The antiquities of Java will probably, to some extent at least, supply this deficiency, as will be pointed out in a subsequent chapter.

[251] Vol. i. p. 212, et seqq.

252 Vol. i. p. 213.

253 Ibid., p. 334.

254 Fully illustrated in vol. ii. of the Dilettanti Society’s ‘Antiquities of Ionia.’

255 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iv. p. 1, et seqq.; ‘Madras Journal,’ vol. xx. p. 78, et seqq.; ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iii. p. 206, et seqq.

256 ‘Archæological Reports,’ 1874, pp. 41 and 42.

257 Loc. cit., plate 54.

258 ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. ix. p. 270, vol. xvii. p. 285.

259 ‘Hiouen Thsang, Vie et Voyages,’ vol. i. p. 253, et seqq.

260 See Woodcuts Nos. 99, 112, 122, 124, 127, 172, 177 and 178 of vol. i. of this work.

261 In his work on the ‘Antiquities of Orissa,’ Babu Rajendra Lalâ Mittra suggests at page 31 something of this sort, but if his diagram were all that is to be said in favour of the hypothesis, I would feel inclined to reject it.

262 No really satisfactory translation of these Asoka edicts has yet been published. The best is that of Professor Wilson, in vol. xii. ‘Journal of Royal Asiatic Society.’ Mr. Burgess has, however, recently re-copied that at Girnar, and General Cunningham those in the north of India. When these are published it may be possible to make a better translation than has yet appeared.

263 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. viii. p. 120.

264 Ibid., vol. vii. p. 124.

265 Lieut. Postans’ ‘Journey to Girnar,’ ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vii. p. 865, et seqq. This, with most of the facts here recorded, is taken either from Mr. Burgess’s descriptions of the photographs in his ‘Visit to Somnath, Girnar, and other places in Kathiawar,’ or Lieut. Postans’ ‘Journey,’ just referred to. Col. Tod’s facts are too much mixed up with poetry to admit of their being quoted.

266 Mr. Burgess visited this place during the spring of the present year, and has brought away plans and sections, from which it appears these caves are old, but till his materials are published it is impossible to state exactly how old they may be. I am afraid this work will be published long before his Report.

267 Ram Raj, ‘Architecture of the Hindus,’ p. 49.

268 Burgess, ‘Visit to Girnar,’ &c., p. 3.

269 ‘Ferishta,’ translated by General Briggs, vol. i. p. 72. Wilson, however (‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xvii. p. 194), is clearly of opinion that it was a lingam. One slight circumstance mentioned incidentally by Ferishta (p. 74) convinces me as clearly it was Jaina. After describing the destruction of the great idol, he goes on to say, “There were in the temple some thousands of small images, wrought in gold and silver, of various shapes and dimensions.” I know of no religion except that of the Jains—and the very late Buddhists—who indulged in this excessive reduplication of images.

270 A view of this temple, not very correct but fairly illustrative of the style, forms the title-page to Col. Tod’s ‘Travels in Western India.’

271 See ‘Illustrations of Indian Architecture,’ by the Author, p. 30, from which work the plan and view are taken.

272 See ante, p. 221.

273 ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. ii. p. 357.

274 Ibid., plate 90.

275 The only person who has described these temples in any detail is Gen. Cunningham, ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. ii. p. 412, et seqq., from which consequently all that is here said is taken. I am also indebted to the General for a very complete set of photographs of these temples, which enables me to speak of their appearance with confidence.

276 General Cunningham hesitates to adopt its extreme simplicity and rudeness as a test of its age, because it is built of granite, the other in the exquisite stone of the neighbourhood. Its plan, however, and the forms of its sikras, induce me to believe it to be exceptionally old.

277 For plans of similar Jaina temples, see Mr. Burgess’s Report on Belgâm and Kuladgi, pls. 2, 10 and 45. These, however, are more modern than this one.

278 ‘Picturesque Illustrations of Indian Architecture,’ by the Author, plate 5.

279 Impey, ‘Views in Delhi, Agra, and Rajpootana,’ London, 1865, frontispiece and plate 60.

280 Sri Allat, to whom the erection of this tower is ascribed, is the 12th king, mentioned in Tod’s Aitpore inscriptions (‘Rajastan,’ vol. i. p. 802).

281 ‘Picturesque Illustrations of Ancient Architecture in Hindostan,’ by the Author, pl. 8, p. 38.

282 The dome that now crowns this tower was substituted for the old dome since I sketched it in 1839.

283 Burgess, ‘Sutrunjya,’ p. 20. A plan of this temple is given by him and several photographs.

284 Burgess, loc. cit., p. 25.

285 Tod’s ‘Travels in Western India,’ pp. 280, 281.

286 L. Rousselet, in ‘L’Inde des Rajahs,’ devotes three plates, pp. 396-8, to these temples. I possess several photographs of them.

287 ‘Picturesque Illustrations of Indian Architecture,’ pl. 17.

288 Burgess, ‘Report on Belgâm and Kuladji Districts,’ 1875, p. 25, plates 36 and 37.

289 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iv. p. 7; ‘Madras Journal,’ vol. xx. p. 78, et seqq.

290 Tod’s ‘Rajastan,’ vol. i. p. 778, and plate facing it.

291 Unfortunately the census of 1872 did not extend to the Mysore, where the principal Jaina establishments are situated, nor to any of the native states of southern India. The figures thus given do not consequently at all represent the facts of the case.

292 ‘Vie et Voyages,’ vol. i. p. 201, et seqq., vol. iii. p. 146, et seqq.

293 Sir Walter Elliot and others have told me there are Buddhist remains in the south, and I know the general opinion is that this is so. I have never myself seen any, nor been able to obtain photographs or detailed information regarding them. When they are brought forward these assertions may be modified. They, however, express in the meanwhile our present knowledge of the subject.

294 ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. ix. p. 285.

295 These three were engraved in ‘Moor’s Pantheon,’ plates 73 and 74, in 1810. I have photographs of them, but not of any others, nor have I been able to hear of any but these three.

296 ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. ix. p. 285; ‘Indian Antiquary,’ vol. ii. p. 353.

297 Moor’s ‘Pantheon,’ plate 73.

298 Burgess, ‘Archæological Reports,’ 1875, p. xxxvii., plate 25.

299 The artist who drew the lithographs for the ‘Indian Antiquary,’ vol. ii. plate on p. 353, not knowing that serpents were intended, has supplied their place with an ornamentation of his own design.

300 Among the photographs of the ‘Architecture of Dharwar and Mysore,’ plates 74 and 75, there labelled Hirpouhully. When writing the descriptions of these plates, I was struck with, and pointed out, the curiously exceptional nature of the style of that temple, and its affinities with the style of Nepal; but I had no idea then that it was below, and not above, the Ghâts, and far from being exceptional in the country where it was situated. In fact, one of the great difficulties in writing a book like the present is to avoid making mistakes of this sort. Photographers are frequently so careless in naming the views they are making, and mounters frequently more so, in transferring the right names to the mounts, that in very many instances photographs come to me with names that have no connexion with the subjects; and it is only by careful comparison, aided with extraneous knowledge, that grave errors can be avoided.

301 ‘Travels in the Himalayan Provinces and in Ladakh and Kashmir,’ London, Murray, 1841.

302 ‘Travels in Kashmir, Ladak,’ &c., two vols. 8vo., London, Colburn, 1842.

303 ‘Travels in Kashmir and the Punjab.’ Translated by Major Jervis, London, 1845.

304 ‘Illustrations of the Ancient Buildings in Kashmir,’ &c., prepared, under the authority of the Secretary of State for India in Council, by Lieut. H. H. Cole, R.E., quarto, Allen and Co., London, 1869.

305 I cannot make out the span of this arch. According to the rods laid across the photograph, it appears to be 15 feet; according to the scale on the plan, only half that amount.

306 Lieut. Cole’s plates, 1-68 to 4-68.

307 See drawing of mosque by Vigne, vol. i. p. 269; and also ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ 1848, p. 253, containing General A. Cunningham’s paper on the subject, from which this woodcut is taken.

308 On the Toran attached to the rail at Bharhut are elevations of chaitya halls, shown in section, which represent this trefoil form with great exactness.

309 Josephus, ‘Bell. Jud.,’ v. v. 4, Middoth, iv. 6. I have written a work I hope one day to publish, ‘On the temples of the Jews,’ in which all these dimensions will be drawn to scale.

310 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ Sept. 1848, p. 267.

311 Cunningham in the ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ Sept. 1848, p. 269.

312 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ Sept. 1848, p. 273.

313 Cunningham, loc. cit., p. 263; Vigne, ‘Travels in Kashmir,’ vol. i. p. 384.

314 It is not a little singular, however, that the only temple I know of in India that resembles this one, either in plan or arrangement, is the smaller temple of Conjeveram in the Chola country, near Madras; and it is curious that both the ‘Raja Tarangini,’ the Kashmiri history, and that of the Chola country, mention that Ranaditya of Kashmir married a daughter of the Chola king, and assisted in forming an aqueduct from the Cauvery—showing at least an intimacy which may have arisen from that affinity of race and religion, which, overleaping the intruded Aryans, united the two extremities of India in one common bond. True, the style of the two temples is different; but when I saw the one I did not know of the existence of the other, and did not, as I now should, examine the details with that care which alone would enable any one to pronounce definitely regarding their affinities.

315 Troyer’s ‘Translation,’ lib. iii., v. 462.

316 Troyer’s ‘Translation,’ lib. iv., v. 126-371.

317 ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xv. p. 49.

318 ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ p. 47.

319 ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xv. p. 61. Troyer’s ‘Translation,’ lib. v., c. 128.

320 Plans of these temples with details are given by Cunningham, plates 17 and 18, and by Lieut. Cole with photographs, plates 20 to 27, and 2 to 5 for details. Mr. Cowie also adds considerably to our information on the subject. The dimensions quoted in the text are from Lieut. Cole, and are in excess of those given by General Cunningham.

321 Lieut. Cole, ‘Illustrations of Ancient Buildings in Kashmir,’ p. 23, plates 37 and 38.

322 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ 1866, p. 101, et seqq.

323 ‘Illustrations of Ancient Buildings in Kashmir,’ p. 11, plates 6 to 11.

324 Cunningham, ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ Sept. 1848, p. 256.

325 ‘Raja Tarangini,’ vol. i. verse 170.

326 ‘Vie et Voyages,’ vol. i. p. 96.

327 Nepal is fortunate in having possessed in Mr. Brian H. Hodgson one of the most acute observers that ever graced the Bengal Civil Service. At the time, however, when he was Resident in the valley, none of the questions mooted in this work can be said to have been started; and he was mainly engrossed in exploring and communicating to others the unsuspected wealth of Buddhist learning which he found in Nepal, and the services he rendered to this cause are incalculably great. Nor did he neglect the architecture. I have before me a short manuscript essay on the subject, only four sheets foolscap, with about one hundred illustrations, which, if fully worked out, would be nearly all that is required. Unfortunately there are neither dates nor dimensions, and the essay is so short, and the drawings, made by natives, so incomplete, that it does not supply what is wanted; but, if worked out on the spot and supplemented by photographs, it might be all that is required.

328 A curious mistake occurs in Buchanan Hamilton’s ‘Account of the Kingdom of Nepal.’ At page 57 he says: “Gautama, according to the best authorities, lived in the sixth century B.C., and Sakya in the first century A.D. The doctrines of Sakya Singha differ most essentially from those of Gautama.” In the writings of any other man this would be put down as a stupid mistake, but he was so careful an observer that it is evident that his informers confounded the founder of the Saka era—whether he was Kanishka or not—with the founder of the religion, though they seem to be perfectly aware of the novelty of the doctrines introduced by Nagárjuna and the fourth convocation. He adds, page 190, that Buddhism was introduced into Nepal A.D. 33, which is probably, however, fifty years too early—if, at least, it was consequent on the fourth convocation.

329 Buchanan Hamilton, ‘Account of the Kingdom of Nepal,’ p. 12.

330 Ibid., p. 49.

331 Buchanan Hamilton, ‘Account of the Kingdom of Nepal,’ p. 190.

332 Ibid., p. 22.

333 Ibid., pp. 35 and 211.

334 A view of this temple from the frontispiece of Buchanan Hamilton’s volume.

335 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. v. (N.S.) p. 18.

336 ‘Nepaul,’ p. 187.

337 Buchanan Hamilton, ‘Account of the Kingdom of Nepal,’ pp. 29, 42, 51, &c.

338 The following particulars are taken from a paper by Major Austen in the ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. xliii. part i., 1874.

339 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. xxiv. p. 1. et seqq.

340 Ibid., vol. xx. p. 291, et seqq.

341 Capt. Turner, it is true, who was sent to Teeshoo Lomboo by Warren Hastings, has published with his interesting narrative a number of very faithful views of what he saw, but they are not selected from that class of monuments which is the subject of our present inquiry.

342 ‘Voyage dans le Thibet,’ vol. ii. p. 289. The monastery referred to is that of Séra, in the neighbourhood of Lassa, the capital.

343 It is found currently employed in the decorative sculpture of the Gandhara monasteries, but never as a constructive feature.

344 Cunningham, ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. v. p. 178, et seqq., from which the following particulars are abstracted.

345 I hope no one will mistake the elevation, pl. 44, vol. v. of Cunningham’s ‘Archæological Reports’ for a representation of this temple. It does not in the least resemble it.

346 Cunningham, ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. v. p. 183.

347 ‘Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages,’ London, second edition, 1875, p. 42.

348 ‘Grammar,’ p. 44.

349 The best account of the Pandyan kingdom—the Regio Pandionis of the classical authors—is Wilson’s historical sketch in the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iii. p. 199, et seqq. 1736.

350 Besides the account of this state given by Professor Wilson, in vol. iii. of the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ there are many scattered notices found in Taylor’s ‘Analysis of the Mackenzie MSS.,’ and elsewhere.

351 ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xv. p. 40.

352 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. viii. p. 5.

353 Ibid.

354 Ibid., vol. iv. p. 10.

355 The particulars are abstracted from Sir Walter Elliot’s paper in the fourth, and Mr. Dowson’s paper on the Cheras in the eighth, volume of the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.’

356 The documents collected by Colonel Mackenzie are full of the disputes which ended in the persecution, and these extended apparently from the 5th to the 7th century.

357 See Dr. Babington, Plate 4, vol. ii. of ‘Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ for the sculpture at Maha Balipuram.

358 ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. ix. p. 270, and vol. xvii. p. 285.

359 Burgess, ‘Report on Belgam and Kaladgi,’ 1875, plates 39, 40.

360 Most of these were copied by Dr. Babington, and published with the papers above referred to, but others are given in the volume on the Mackenzie collection in the India Office.

361 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vii. plate 13.

362 Sir Walter Elliot in Lieut. Carr’s compilation, p. 127.

363 Ibid.

364 Among the recently discovered ruins at Bharhut is a bas-relief representing a building so exactly like the long rath here, that there can be no doubt that such buildings were used in the north of India two centuries at least before Christ, but to what purpose they were applied is not so clear. The one at Bharhut seems to have contained the thrones or altars of the four last Buddhas.

365 Among the sculptures of the Gandhara monasteries are several representing façades of buildings. They may be cells or chaitya halls, but, at all events, they are almost exact reproductions of the façade of this rath. Being used as frameworks for sculpture, the northern examples are, of course, conventionalised; but it is impossible to mistake the identity of intention. They may probably be of about the same age.

366 Burgess, ‘Report on Belgam,’ &c., p. 24.

367 ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ p. 73.

368 If it were possible to rouse the Madras Government to take any interest in such matters, it might be hoped they would replace the head of the great Naga on his body before it is destroyed by being made a cockshy for idle Britishers.

369 In Daniell’s plates, No. 16, the upper part of this is shown. Being cut in the rock no addition or alteration could afterwards have been intended.

370 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. ix. p. 314, et seqq.

371 ‘Report on Belgam and Kaladji,’ 1874, p. 31, et seqq.

372 There are four photographs of this temple in the ‘Architectural Antiquities of Dharwar and Mysore,’ plates 54-57. One of these is repeated in Mr. Burgess’s book, plate 38.

373 Several photographs of it will be found in Capt. Lyon’s collection.

374 Capt. Lyon was employed by Government for this purpose, and made 276 photographs of these temples. Fourteen sets were furnished to Government, but, owing to difficulties which occurred in bringing them out, they can hardly be said to be published—in this country at least.

375 As the plan is only an eye-sketch, and the dimensions obtained by pacing, it must not be too much relied on. It is sufficient to explain the text, and that is all that is at present required.

376 Inscription on gateway.

377 The dimensions of this image are 16 ft. from muzzle to rump, by above 7 ft. across, 12 ft. 2 in. to top of head, 10 ft. 4 in. to top of hump, and 7 ft. 5 in. to top of back. It is composed of a single block of stone, I believe granite, but it has been so frequently and so thoroughly coated with oil, which is daily applied to it, that it looks like bronze. I tried to remove a portion of this epidermis in order to ascertain what was beneath, but was not successful. No other kind of stone, however, is used in any other part of the temple.

378 Though so very important in Dravidian history, we have not even now a correct list of the Chola kings from the year 1000 downwards. There certainly is not one among the Mackenzie MSS. The late Mr. Ellis, it is said, had one, but he determined not to publish anything before he was forty years of age, and before that time he swallowed a bottleful of laudanum by mistake, and was found dead in his bed one morning. His papers served his successor’s cook to light fires for some years afterwards.

379 Except this dimension, which is from a survey, and those of the gopuras, the dimensions above quoted must be taken cum grano. They were obtained only by pacing and eye-sketching.

380 A drawing of it was published in my ‘Picturesque Illustrations of Indian Architecture.’ It has since been frequently photographed.

381 ‘Picturesque Illustrations of Ancient Architecture in Hindustan,’ p. 60.

382 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. viii. p. 7.

383 ‘Madras Journal,’ No. 20, p. 15.

384 Its dimensions, as nearly as can be ascertained from my paces, and Admiral Paris’ plans, are 340 ft. by 180 ft.

385 The plan of this temple (Woodcut No. 200) is taken from one in the ‘Journal of the Geographical Society of Bombay,’ vol. vii., and may be depended upon in so far as dimensions and general arrangements are concerned. The officers who made it were surveyors, but, unfortunately, not architects, and photographs since made reveal certain discrepancies of detail which prove it to require revision by some one on the spot.

386 There is a view of it in the Atlas of plates that accompanies Lord Valentia’s travels; not very correct, but conveying a fair idea of its proportions.

387 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iii. p. 202.

388 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iii. p. 230, et seqq.

389 Fortunately this choultrie is also one of the best known of Indian buildings. It was drawn by Daniell in the end of the last century, and his drawings have been repeated by Langles and others. It was described by Mr. Blackadder in the ‘Archæologia,’ vol. x. p. 457; and by Wilson, ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iii. p. 232. Volumes of native drawings exist in some collections containing representations of every pillar. A model in bronze of a porch exists at South Kensington Museum, and it has been abundantly photographed.

390 In the description of Tripe’s photograph this dimension is given as 117 ft.

391 Most of these particulars, with those that follow regarding the temples, are taken from Capt. Lyon’s description of his photographs of the places. He devotes twenty-six photos. to this temple alone.

392 The view in this temple in my ‘Picturesque Illustrations of Indian Architecture,’ No. 21, is taken from the corner of this tank.

393 There is a native plan of this temple in the India Museum, which makes it very much more extensive than my inspection of the part I was allowed access to would have led me to suppose. I do not know, however, how far the plan can be depended upon.

394 It is supposed, erroneously, I believe (‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ (N.S.) vol. vi. p. 265), to be the Kanchipuram visited by Hiouen Thsang in 640. Nagapatam was more probably the place he indicated.

395 I was too unwell when I visited Conjeveram to make so careful a survey of its temples as I would have wished to have done.

396 I have never been able to ascertain even approximately its dimensions. Hundreds visit it, many have photographed, some written descriptions, but to measure dimensions and make even a sketch plan seems beyond the educational capacity of our countrymen.

397 When I was in Madras, and indeed up to the present year, the temple on the hill of Tripetty or Tirupetty was reputed to be the richest, the most magnificent, as it was certainly the most sacred of all those in the Presidency. So sacred, indeed, was it, that no unbelieving foreigner had ever been allowed to climb the holy hill (2500 ft. high) or profane its sacred precincts. In 1870, a party of police forced their way in, in pursuit of a murderer who had taken refuge there, and a Mr. Gribble, who accompanied them, published this year (1875) an account of what they saw in the ‘Calcutta Review.’ As he exclaims, “Another of the illusions of my youth destroyed.” The temple is neither remarkable for its size nor its magnificence. In these respects it is inferior to Conjeveram, Seringham, and many others; and whatever may be done with its immense revenues, they certainly are not applied to its adornment. It is a fair specimen of a Dravidian temple of the second class, but in a sad state of dilapidation and disrepair.

398 What I know on this subject I have already said in my work on ‘Rude Stone Monuments,’ p. 455, et seqq.

399 Some money was, I believe, expended during Lord Napier’s administration on the repairs of this court and its appurtenances, but it was quite beyond the purview of an Anglo-Saxon to make a plan of the place. It is, consequently, very difficult to describe it.

400 Description attached to Tripe’s Photographs.

401 Vol. i. (N.S.) p. 247, et seqq.

402 Professor Eggeling tells me he has great reason for suspecting the date 411 for Palakesi I. (‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iv. p. 8) to be a forgery. There is something certainly wrong about it, but how the error arose is not yet clear. It seems at least a century too early. See the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iv. p. 12; ibid., vol. iv. (N.S.) p. 93.

403 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iv. p. 10, et seqq.

404 Prinsep’s ‘Useful Tables,’ re-edited by Thomas, pp. 267-268.

405 If all the quadrants of this portico were equal the numbers ought to be 300, or 75 in each, but I fancy a considerable portion of two of them was cut off by the site of the temple. As I have nothing but photographs to go by, and they only show the exterior, even this is uncertain, and the dimensions I cannot even guess at. They are very large, however, for a Hindu temple.

406 These dates are taken from a list of this dynasty among the Mackenzie MSS., quoted by Prinsep, ‘Useful Tables,’ xli., and are confirmed by the architectural evidence and other indications.

407 I regret that I have been unable to get a plan of this temple or, indeed, of any triple temple. That at Girnar (Woodcut No. 127) belongs to another religion, and is too far distant in locality to assist us here. An imperfect one might be compiled from the photographs, but I have not even an approximate dimension.

408 In a very few years this building will be entirely destroyed by the trees, which have fastened their roots in the joints of the stones. In a drawing in the Mackenzie collection in the India Office, made in the early part of this century, the building is shown entire. Twenty years ago it was as shown at p. 398. A subsequent photograph shows it almost hidden; a few years more, if some steps are not taken to save it, it will have perished entirely. A very small sum would save it; and, as the country is in our charge, it is hoped that the expenditure will not be grudged.

409 Plates 1 and 32-40. Published by Murray, 1864.

410 In 1848 Gen. Cunningham applied the term Aryan to the architecture of Kashmir, apparently on the strength of a pun (‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ September, 1848, p. 242). This, however, was limiting a term that belongs to two continents to an insignificant valley, in one of them. It was, besides, wholly uncalled for. The term Kashmiri was amply sufficient, and all that was wanted for so strictly local a style.

411 ‘Historical Sketch of Tahsil Fyzabad,’ by P. Carnegy, Lucknow, 1870. Gen. Cunningham attempts to identify the various mounds at this place with those described as existing in Saketu by the Buddhist Pilgrims (‘Ancient Geography of India,’ p. 401, et seqq.; ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. i. p. 293, et seqq.) The truth of the matter, however, is, that neither Fa Hian nor Hiouen Thsang were ever near the place. The city they visited, and where the Toothbrush-tree grew, was the present city of Lucknow, which was the capital of the kingdom in Sakya Muni’s time.

412 ‘Sacred City of the Hindus,’ London, 1868, p. 271, et seqq.; ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. xxxiv. p. 1, et seqq.

413 Curiously enough they make their appearance on the stage about the same time, and both then complete and perfect in all their details.

414 ‘Hunter’s Orissa,’ vol. i. p. 233.

415 I regret very much being obliged to send this chapter to press before the receipt of the second volume of Babu Rajendra Lala Mittra’s ‘Antiquities of Orissa.’ He accompanied a Government expedition to that province in 1868 as archæologist, and being a Brahman and an excellent Sanscrit scholar, he has had opportunities of ascertaining facts such as no one else ever had. Orissa was the first province I visited in India for the purposes of antiquarian research, and like every one else, I was then quite unfamiliar with the forms and affinities of Hindu architecture. Photographs have enabled me to supply to some extent the deficiency of my knowledge at that time; but unless photographs are taken by a scientific man for scientific purposes, they do not supply the place of local experience. I feel confident that, on the spot, I could now ascertain the sequence of the temples with perfect certainty; but whether the Babu has sufficient knowledge for that purpose remains to be seen. His first volume is very learned, and may be very interesting, but it adds little or nothing to what we already knew of the history of Orissan architecture.
I have seen two plates of plans of temples intended for the second volume. They are arranged without reference either to style or dates, so they convey very little information, and the photographs prove them to be so incorrect that no great dependence can be placed upon them. The text, which I have not seen, may remedy all this, and I hope will, but if he had made any great discoveries, such as the error in the date of the Black Pagoda, they most probably would have been hinted at in the first volume, or have leaked out in some of the Babu’s numerous publications during the last seven or eight years.
Mr. Hunter, who was in constant communication with the Babu, adds very little in his work on Orissa to what we learnt long ago from Stirling’s, which up to this hour remains the classical work on the province and its antiquities.

416 These particulars are taken, of course, from Stirling, ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xv. pp. 263, 264. The whole evidence was embodied in a paper on the Amravati tope, ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iii. (N.S.), p. 149, et seqq.

417 Hunter’s ‘Orissa,’ vol. i. p. 238.

418 This dimension is from Babu Rajendra’s ‘Orissan Antiquities,’ vol. i. p. 41, but I don’t like it.

419 This and the dimensions in plan generally are taken from a table in Babu Rajendra’s work, p. 41. I am afraid they are only round numbers, and certainly incorrect, but they suffice for comparison.

420 ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ plates 48-98.

421 Hunter’s ‘Orissa,’ vol. i. p. 237.

422 It is to be hoped that Babu Rajendra’s book may to some extent remedy this deficiency. In the part, however, now published, he does not promise that this will be the case.

423 Cunningham’s ‘Reports,’ vol. ii. p. 416.

424 ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xv. p. 327.

425 Myself included in the number! but, as explained above, I had no knowledge of the style when I visited Orissa, and had no photographs to illustrate the architecture of temples to which I was not then allowed access.

426 When I visited Orissa in 1837 and sketched this temple, a great part of the tower was still standing. See ‘Picturesque Illustrations of Indian Architecture,’ part iii. It has since fallen entirely, but whether from stress of weather or by aid from the Public Works Department is by no means clear.

427 ‘Ayeen Akbery,’ Gladwin’s translation, vol. ii. p. 16.

428 Hunter’s ‘Orissa,’ Appendix vii. p. 187, et seqq.

429 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vii. p. 557.

430 ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xvi. p. 25.

431 In his ‘Antiquities of Orissa’ (p. 151), Babu Rajendra sums up exhaustively the argument for and against Vishnu being considered the same as the Sun in the Vedas, and, on the whole, makes out a strong case in favour of the identification. Even, however, if the case were much less strong than it appears to be, it by no means follows that what was only dimly shadowed forth in the Vedas may not have become an accepted fact in the Puranas, and an established dogma in Orissa in the 9th century, when this temple was erected.

432 ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xv. p. 330.

433 These discrepancies arise from the fact that the beams lie on the floor buried under the ruins of the stone roof they once supported, and it is extremely difficult to get at them so as to obtain correct measurements.

434 ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xv. p. 316.

435 Loc. cit., p. 265.

436 Tournour’s abstract of the Dalawanso in the ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vi. p. 856, et seqq.

437 ‘Asiatic Researches,’ v. 1. xv. p. 320.

438 ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xv. p. 315.

439 The plan is reduced from one to a scale of 40 feet to 1 in., made by an intelligent native assistant to the Public Works Department, named Radhica Pursâd Mukerji, and is the only plan I ever found done by a native sufficiently correct to be used, except as a diagram, or after serious doctoring.

440 Hunter, ‘Orissa,’ vol. i. p. 128.

441 News has just reached this country of a curious accident having happened in this temple. Just after the gods had been removed from their Sinhasan to take their annual excursion to the Gundicha Nûr, some stones of the roof fell in, and would have killed any attendants and smashed the gods had they not fortunately all been absent. Assuming the interior of the Bara Dewul to be as represented (Woodcut No. 124), it is not easy to see how this could have happened. But in the same woodcut the porch or Jagamohan of the Kanaruc pagoda is represented with a flat false roof, which has fallen, and now encumbers the floor of the apartment. That roof, however, was formed of stone laid on iron beams, and looked as if it could only have been shaken down by an earthquake. I have little doubt that a similar false roof was formed someway up the tower over the altar at Puri, but formed probably of stone laid on wooden beams and either decay or the white ants having destroyed the timber, the stones have fallen as narrated.
A similar roof so supported on wooden beams still exists in the structural temple on the shore at Mahavellipore, and, I have no doubt, elsewhere, but it is almost impossible to get access to these cells when the gods are at home, and the places are so dark it is equally impossible to see, except when in ruins, how they were roofed.

442 ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xv. p. 367.

443 Ibid., p. 335; Hunter’s ‘Orissa,’ vol. i. p. 266.

444 ‘Ayeen Akbery,’ Gladwin’s translation, vol. ii. p. 13.

445 These dimensions, except those of Kanaruc, are taken from a table in Babu Rajendra’s ‘Antiquities of Orissa,’ vol. i. p. 41, and are sufficient to give an idea of the relative size of the building. So far as I can make out they are taken from angle to angle of the towers, but as they all have projections on their faces, when cubed, as is done in the table referred to, they are much too small. I may also observe that I know of no instance in which the two dimensions differ. The four faces are always, I believe, alike. The dates are my own; none are given, except for the great temple, in the Babu’s first volume.

446 The two works on this subject are the ‘Architectural History of Dharwar and Mysore,’ fol., 100 plates, Murray, 1866, and Burgess’s ‘Report on the Belgam and Kuladgi Districts,’ 1874. Considering the time available and the means at his disposal, Mr. Burgess did wonders, but it is no dispraise to say that he has not, nor could any man in his place, exhaust so vast a subject.

447 For architectural purposes the three places may be considered as one. Aiwulli is five or six miles north of Badami, and Purudkul or Pittadkul as far south. Ten miles covers the whole, which must have been in the 6th or 7th century a place of great importance—possibly Watipipura, the capital of the Chalukyas in the 5th or 6th century. See ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iv. p. 9.

448 ‘Histoire de Hiouen Thsang,’ p. 255; ‘Vie et Voyages,’ vol. i. p. 280.

449 ‘Report on the District of Belgam and Kuladgi.’ 1874.

450 When I originally wrote on the subject I thought I had the 9th and 10th centuries at my disposal. It now appears they must be blotted out as non-existent for any historical or artistic purpose.

451 This is the date given by Mr. Burgess in his description in ‘The Caves at Elephanta,’ Bombay, 1871, p. 5.

452 ‘Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. ii. pl. 4.

453 Loc. cit., pl. 6.

454 Burgess, ‘Report on Belgam,’ &c. pl. 31.

455 Loc. cit., pls. 20, 23, 40.

456 ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ pl. 76.

457 Burgess, ‘Report on Belgam and Kuladji,’ pl. 31.

458 A view of this was published in my ‘Picturesque Illustrations of Indian Architecture,’ pl. 5.

459 Tod’s ‘Annals of Rajastan,’ vol. ii. p. 734.

460 ‘Picturesque Illustrations of Ancient Architecture in Hindostan,’ pl. 6, with description. Gen. Cunningham (‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. ii. p. 264) agrees with me as to the date, but inadvertently adds a scale to his plan which makes the building ten times larger than I made it, or than it really is.

461 Tod (loc. cit.) gives several plates of the details of the porch by a native artist—fairly well drawn, but wanting shadow to render them intelligible.

462 Tod’s ‘Annals of Rajastan,’ vol. ii. p. 712.

463 A view of this temple will be found in my ‘Picturesque Illustrations of Indian Architecture,’ pl. 4.

464 We are indebted to Gen. Cunningham for almost all we know about this place, and it is from his ‘Reports’ and photographs that the following account has been compiled.

465 Cunningham, ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. ii. p 420.

466 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. ix. p. 548. The date is given from four different epochs, so that there can be no mistake about it.

467 A portion of the casts are in the South Kensington Museum. Transcripts from the drawings were published in the ‘Indian Antiquary,’ vol. iii. p. 316.

468 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. ix. p. 219.

469 Ibid., vol. ix. p. 221.

470 Both these temples are illustrated to a considerable extent in Lieut. H. H. Cole’s illustrations of buildings near Muttra and Agra, published by the India Office, 1873, to which the reader is referred for further information.

471 Buchanan Hamilton, ‘Eastern India,’ edited by Montgomery Martin, 1837, vol. ii. p. 628.

472 Frontispiece to Buchanan Hamilton’s ‘Eastern India.’

473 A view of this temple is given in my ‘Picturesque Illustrations of Ancient Architecture in Hindostan,’ pl. 14.

474 Ante, vol. i., Woodcut No. 241.

475 A view of it is given in Tod’s ‘Rajastan,’ vol. i. p. 267. Some parts have been misunderstood by the engraver, but on the whole it represents the building fairly.

476 A view of one of these is given in my ‘Illustrations of Ancient Architecture in India,’ plate 15. Other illustrations will be found in ‘L’Inde des Rajahs,’ p. 187, et seqq.

477 Erskine’s ‘Memoirs of Baber,’ p. 384.

478 These particulars are taken from Cunningham’s ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. ii. p. 346, et seqq., plates 87 and 88.

479 How far anything of all this now exists is by no means clear. We occupied the fort during the mutiny, and have retained it ever since. The first thing done was to occupy the Barradurri as a mess-room: to fit up portions of the palace for military occupation; then to build a range of barracks, and clear away a lot of antiquarian rubbish to make a parade ground. What all this means is only too easily understood. M. Rousselet—no unfriendly critic—observes:—“Les Anglais sont très-activement occupés à simplifier la besogne de l’archéologue, et à faire disparaître ce précieux document de l’histoire de l’Inde; déjà toutes les constructions à la gauche de la porte de l’est sont livrées à la pioche et le même sort est réservé au reste” (‘L’Inde des Rajahs,’ p. 362). And, again: “Mais, hélas! l’Ourwahaï lui aussi a vécu. Quand j’y revins en Décembre, 1867, les arbres étaient coupés, les statues volaient en éclats, sous les pics des travailleurs, et le ravin se remplissait des talus d’une nouvelle route construite par les Anglais—talus dans lesquels dorment les palais des Chandelas et des Tomars, les idoles des Bouddhistes et des Jainas.”—Loc. cit. p. 366.

480 A plan of it is given in Lieut. Cole’s ‘Report on the Buildings near Agra’—correct as far as it goes, but not complete.

481 Egypt showed little taste for architectural display till she fell under the sway of the Memlook Sultans, and Saracenic architecture in Persia practically commences with the Seljukians.

482 ‘Architecture of Beejapore. Photographed from Drawings by Capt. Hart and A. Cumming, C.E., and on the spot by Col. Biggs and Major Loch, with text by Col. Meadows Taylor and J. Fergusson.’ Folio, Murray, 1866.

483 ‘Architecture of Ahmedabad. 120 Photographs by Col. Biggs, with Text by T. C. Hope, B.C.S., and Jas. Fergusson.’ Small folio, Murray, 1866.

484 Brigg’s translation, vol. i. p. 61.

485 It is very much to be regretted that not a single officer accompanied our armies, when they passed and repassed through Ghazni, able or willing to appreciate the interest of these ruins; and it is to be hoped, if an opportunity should again occur, that their importance to the history of art in the East will not be overlooked.

486 The sketch of the tomb published by Mr. Vigne in his ‘Travels in Afghanistan,’ gives too confined a portion of it to enable us to judge either of its form or detail. The gate in front is probably modern, and the foiled arches in the background appear to be the only parts that belong to the 11th century.

487 The tradition that these gates were of sandal-wood, and brought from Somnath, is entirely disproved by the fact of their being of the local pine-wood, as well as by the style of decoration, which has no resemblance to Hindu work.

488 An excellent representation of the gates will be found in the second edition of ‘Marco Polo’s Travels,’ by Col. Yule, vol. ii. p. 390.

489 See translation of the inscription on these minars, ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ No. 134, for 1843.

490 Two are represented by Dubois de Montpéreux, ‘Voyage autour du Caucase.’

491 Vide ante, vol. ii. p. 444, et seqq.

492 Vide ante, vol. i. p. 387, et seqq.

493 I do not know why Gen. Cunningham should go out of his way to prove that the Ajmir mosque is larger than that at Delhi (‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. ii. p. 260). His remarks apply only to the inner court at Delhi, which may have been the whole mosque as originally designed; but before the death of Altumsh, who was the real builder of both, the screen of arches at Delhi had been extended to 380 ft. as compared with the 200 ft. at Ajmir, and the courtyards of the two mosques are nearly in the same proportion, their whole superficial area being 72,000 ft. at Ajmir, as compared with 152,000 ft. at Delhi.

494 Gen. Cunningham found an inscription on the wall recording that twenty-seven temples of the Hindus had been pulled down to provide materials for this mosque (‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. i. p. 176). This, however, proves little, unless we know what the temples were like which were destroyed for this purpose. Twenty-seven temples like those at Khajurâho, excepting the Ganthai, would not provide pillars for one half the inner court. One temple like that at Sadri would supply a sufficiency for the whole mosque, and though the latter is more modern, we have no reason for supposing that similar temples may not have existed before Mahomedan times.

495 This mode of construction is only feasible when much larger stones are used than were here employed. The consequence was that the arch had become seriously crippled when I saw and sketched it. It has since been carefully restored by Government under efficient superintendence, and is now as sound and complete as when first erected. The two great side arches either were never completed, or have fallen down in consequence of the false mode of construction.

496 ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. iv. p. 313. Its present height, according to Gen. Cunningham, is (after the removal of the modern pavilion) 238 ft. 1 in. (‘Archæological Reports,’ vol i. p. 196).

497 Translated by Walter Ewer, ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xiv. p. 480. See also Cunningham, ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. i. p. 132, et seqq.

498 It is a curious illustration how difficult it sometimes is to obtain correct information in India, that when Gen. Cunningham published his ‘Reports’ in 1871, he stated, apparently on the authority of Mr. Cooper, Deputy Commissioner, that an excavation had been carried down to a depth of 26 ft., but without reaching the bottom. “The man in charge, however”—témoin oculaire—“assured him that the actual depth reached was 35 ft.”—Vol. i. p. 169. He consequently estimated the whole length at 60 ft., but fortunately ordered a new excavation, determined to reach the bottom—coûte qui coûte—and found it at 20 inches below the surface.—Vol. iv. p. 28, pl. 5. At a distance of a few inches below the surface it expands in a bulbous form to a diameter of 2 ft. 4 in., and rests on a gridiron of iron bars, which are fastened with lead into the stone pavement.

499 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vii. p. 629.

500 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. x. p. 64. These two translations are painfully discrepant in detail, though agreeing sufficiently as to the main facts. On the whole, I am inclined to think Bhau Daji’s the most correct, though I agree with Prinsep in believing that the more archaic form of the letters is owing to their being punched with a cold chisel on the iron, instead of being engraved as those on stone always were.

501 There is no mistake about the pillar being of pure iron. Gen. Cunningham had a bit of it analysed in India by Dr. Murray, and another portion was analysed in the School of Mines here by Dr. Percy. Both found it pure malleable iron without any alloy.

502 Can these Balhikas be the dynasty we have hitherto known as the Sah kings of Saurastra? They certainly were settled on the lower Indus from about the year A.D. 79, and were expelled, according to their own dates, A.D. 264 or 371. (See ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. viii. p. 28.) My impression is, that this may ultimately prove to be the true solution of the riddle.

503 The same form of pendentive is found at Serbistan (Woodcut No. 946, vol. ii.), nearly ten centuries before this time.

504 Cunningham, ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. ii. p. 261.

505 I am sorry to differ from Gen. Cunningham on this matter. He has seen the mosque—I have not; but I have photographs and drawings of it, and directed Mr. Burgess’s attention especially to this point when he visited it, and the result is a conviction on my mind that the pillars now standing are unaltered in arrangement.
Tod, in his ‘Annals,’ treats it simply as a Jaina temple, without referring to any possible alterations, except additions made by Moslem architects, vol. i. p. 779, see also his plate, which is singularly correct.

506 Owing to the Hindu part being undisturbed, and the Mahomedan part better built and with larger materials, the mosque is not in the same ruinous condition as that at the Kutub was before the late repairs. It is, however, in a filthy and neglected state, and might at a very slight outlay be preserved from further dilapidation, and its beauties very much enhanced. There is, so far as I can judge, no building in India more worthy of the attention of Government than this. The kind of care, however, that is bestowed upon it may be gathered from the following extract from a private letter from a gentleman high in the Government service in India, and one perfectly well informed as to what he was writing about: “Have you ever heard that some of the Hindu pillars of the great mosque at Ajmir were dragged from their places (I presume they were fallen pillars), and set up as a triumphal arch on the occasion of Lord Mayo’s visit? and have you heard that they were so insecurely converted that nobody dared to go under them, and that Lord Mayo and the inspired—— of architects went round it?” This is more than confirmed in a public letter by Sir John Strachey, Lieut.-Governor of the North-West Provinces, addressed to Lord Northbrook, on 25th August last. In this he speaks of “an over zealous district officer who, not long ago, actually pulled down the sculptured columns of a well-known temple of great antiquity”—the Arhai din ka Jhompra—“with the object of decorating a temporary triumphal arch through which the Viceroy was to pass.” He then proceeds to quote what Rousselet says regarding our neglect of such monuments, which is not one whit too severe.

507 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. xxxiv. p. 1, et seqq., pls. 1-8. It is to me inconceivable that any one looking at these plates, especially the plans, pls. 7 and 8, can see anything in them but the usual tomb of a Mahomedan noble of the 15th century with its accompanying mosque.

508 These dimensions are taken from the text and a plan of the building in Montgomery Martin’s edition of Buchanan Hamilton’s ‘Statistical Account of Shahabad,’ vol. i. p. 425. The plan is, however, so badly drawn that it can hardly be reproduced.

509 The first to suggest this was the Baron Hügel, though his knowledge of the subject was so slight that his opinion would not have had much weight. The idea was, however, taken up afterwards and warmly advocated by the late Mr. Horne, B.C.S., and the Rev. Mr. Sherring, in a series of papers in the ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. xxxiv. p. 1, et seqq., and by the latter in his work on ‘The sacred city of the Hindus,’ p. 283, and elsewhere. They have hitherto failed to adduce a single example of similar pillars existing in any authentic Buddhist or Jaina building—they mean Jaina, though they say Buddhist—or any historical or other evidence that will bear a moment’s examination. There may have been some Jaina or Hindu buildings at Jaunpore of the 13th or 14th centuries that may have been utilised by the Mahomedans, but certainly nine-tenths at least of the pillars in these mosques were made at the time they were required for the places they now occupy.

510 A view of this mosque will be found in Kittoe’s ‘Indian Architecture,’ but, unfortunately, no plan or dimensions. That quoted in the text is from memory.

511 A view of it, but not a good one, is given in Daniell’s plates. It is partially seen in Woodcut No. 291.

512 If the buildings of the Bakaraya Kund had been found within twenty miles of Ahmedabad, where there are dozens exactly like them, they would hardly have deserved a passing remark. Any one familiar with the style would have assigned them a date—A.D. 1450, or thereabouts—and would hardly have troubled himself to inquire who built them, they are so like all others of the same age.

513 General Cunningham’s ‘Reports’ for 1862-63, vol. i. p. 287. From this I learn that the pillars surrounding the court on three sides have been removed since I saw them in 1836—this time, however, not by the English.

514 See plate in Forbes’ ‘Oriental Memoirs,’ vol. iii. ch. xxx.

515 As it is impossible by a woodcut to convey an impression of the beauty of these mosques, the reader is referred to the photographs of ‘Architecture of Ahmedabad,’ &c.

516 Described further on, p. 538, Woodcuts Nos. 306 and 307.

517 I understand from Mr. Burgess that, during his recent visit to Ahmedabad, he copied a number of inscriptions from the mosques there which prove that some of the names given to the buildings are erroneous. When these are published new names and dates must in some instances be given to several of the buildings, but the alterations, as I understand it, are not very important.

518 All the particulars above quoted regarding that mosque are derived from a work published in Bombay in 1868, entitled, ‘Surat, Baroach, and other old Cities of Goojerat.’ By T. C. Hope, B.C.S. Illustrated by photographs, plans, and with descriptive text.

519 Plans of these are in Mr. Hope’s work.

520 There is a very good view of the tomb in Mr. Grindlay’s ‘Views of the East’; but the plan and details here given are from Mr. Hope’s work, sup. cit.

521 A view of this palace, but not from the best point of view, will be found in Elliot’s ‘Views in the East.’

522 In this respect it is something like the curvilinear pediments which Roman and Italian architects employed as window heads. Though detestable in themselves, yet we use and admire them because we are accustomed to them.

523 These particulars are taken principally from Buchanan Hamilton’s ‘Statistics of Dinajepore,’ published by Montgomery Martin in his ‘Eastern India,’ 1838, vol. ii. p. 649, et seqq.

524 Page 347, et seqq.

525 Initial coinage of Bengal, by Edward Thomas, B.C.S. 1866.

526 In the woodcut, though not so clearly as in the photograph, will be observed the long pendent root of the tree which has been planted by some bird in the upper gallery. In another year or two it will reach the ground, and then down comes the minar. Any one with a pocket-knife might save it by five minutes’ work. But Cui bono? says the Saxon.

527 Ante, p. 393.

528 Elphinstone’s ‘India,’ vol. ii. p. 57.

529 For the plan and section of this mosque, and all indeed I know about it, I am indebted to my friend the Hon. Sir Arthur Gordon, at present governor of the Fiji Islands. He made the plans himself, and most liberally placed them at my disposal.

530 I have photographs, but no measurements, of this street.

531 Brigg’s translation of Ferishta, vol. ii. p. 510.

532 There is a view of it from a sketch by Col. Meadows Taylor, in the ‘Oriental Annual’ for 1840.

533 Bijapur has been singularly fortunate, not only in the extent, but in the mode in which it has been illustrated. A set of drawings—plans, elevations, and details—were made by a Mr. A. Cumming, C.E., under the superintendence of Capt. Hart, Bombay Engineers, which, for beauty of drawing and accuracy of detail, are unsurpassed by any architectural drawings yet made in India. These were reduced by photography, and published by me at the expense of the Government in 1859, in a folio volume with seventy-four plates, and afterwards in 1866 at the expense of the Committee for the Publication of the Antiquities of Western India, illustrated further by photographic views taken on the spot by Col. Biggs, R.A.

534 Ante, vol. ii. p. 553.

535 Adopting the numerical scale described in the introduction to the ‘True Principles of Beauty in Art,’ p. 140, I estimated the Parthenon as possessing 4 parts of technic value, 4 of æsthetic, and 4 phonetic, or 24 as its index number, being the highest known. The Taje I should on the contrary estimate as possessing 4 technic, 5 æsthetic, and 2 phonetic, not that it has any direct phonetic mode of utterance, but from the singular and pathetic distinctness with which every part of it gives utterance to the sorrow and affection it was erected to express. Its index number would consequently be 20, which is certainly as high as it can be brought, and near enough to the Parthenon for comparison at least.

536 ‘Memoirs,’ translated by Erskine, p. 334.

537 Loc. cit., pp. 341-2.

538 Brigg’s translation, vol. ii. p. 71.

539 Cunningham, ‘Reports,’ vol. i. p. 222.

540 A description of this mosque is given in Mr. Carllyle’s ‘Report on the Buildings of Delhi,’ forming part of Cunningham’s fourth volume, but like everything else most unsatisfactory. Neither plan nor dimensions are given, mere verbiage conveying no distinct meaning.

541 As I cannot find any trace of this building in Keene’s description of the fort in his third book on Agra, I presume it must have been utilised since my day. Unless it is the building he calls the Nobut Khana of Akbar’s palace (26). I have never seen it in any photograph of the place.

542 It is not quite clear how much Rhotasgur owes its magnificence to Shere Shah, how much to Akbar; both certainly built there, and on the spot it might easily be ascertained how much belongs to each. Unfortunately, the part that belongs to the British is too easily ascertained. “They converted the beautiful Dewan Khand, of which Daniell published a drawing, into a stable for breeding horses.”—Hamilton’s ‘Gazetteer,’ sub voce.

543 I have mislaid the measurements and plan I made of this building; and, as neither Gen. Cunningham nor his assistants give either plan or dimensions, I am unable to quote any figures in the text.

544 The plan is taken from one by Gen. Cunningham (‘Reports,’ vol. ii., plate 91). He omits, however, these square projections. I have added them from the photographs.

545 An attempt has lately been made by Gen. Cunningham and his assistants (‘Reports,’ vol. iv. p. 124), to ascribe this palace to Jehangir. On what authority is not stated; but unless it is very clear and distinct, I must decline to admit it. The whole evidence, so far as I can judge, is directly opposed to such an hypothesis. There is a plan of this palace, in his ‘Reports,’ vol. iv., plate 8.

546 A cast of this throne is in the South Kensington Museum.

547 Photographs of this palace are now common, and can be obtained anywhere; and recently Lieut. Cole’s ‘Report on Buildings in the Neighbourhood of Agra’ supplies some very interesting new ones with plans, from which the dimensions in the text are quoted.

548 No plan or section of this tomb has ever, so far as I know, been published, though it has been in our possession for nearly a century. Those here given are from my own measurements, and, though they may be correct as far as they go, are not so detailed as those of such a monument ought to be, and would have been, had it been in the hands of any other European nation.

⁵⁴⁹ The diagram is probably sufficient to explain the text, but must not be taken as pretending to be a correct architectural drawing. There were parts, such as the height of the lower dome and upper angle kiosks, I had no means of measuring, and after all, I was merely making memoranda for my own satisfaction.

550 After the above was written, and the diagram drawn (Woodcut No. 334), I was not a little pleased to find the following entry in Mr. Finch’s journal. He resided in Agra for some years, and visited the tomb for the last time apparently in 1609, and after describing most faithfully all its peculiarities up to the upper floor, as it now stands, adds: “At my last sight thereof there was only overhead a rich tent with a Semaine over the tomb. But it is to be inarched over with the most curious white and speckled marble, and to be seeled all within with pure sheet gold richly inwrought.”—‘Purchas, his Pilgrims,’ vol. i. p. 440.

551 Although the fact seems hardly now to be doubted, no very direct evidence has yet been adduced to prove that it was to foreign—Florentine—artists that the Indians owe the art of inlaying in precious stones generally known as work in “pietro duro.” Austin or Augustin de Bordeaux, is the only European artist whose name can positively be identified with any works of the class. He certainly was employed by Shah Jehan at Delhi, and executed that mosaic of Orpheus or Apollo playing to the beasts, after Raphael’s picture, which once adorned the throne there, and is now in the Indian Museum at South Kensington.
It is, however, hardly to be expected that natives should record the names of those who surpassed them in their own arts; and needy Italian adventurers were even less likely to have an opportunity of recording the works they executed in a strange and foreign country. Had any Italian who lived at the courts of Jehangir or Shah Jehan written a book, he might have recorded the artistic prowess of his countrymen, but none such, so far as I am aware, has yet seen light.
The internal evidence, however, seems complete. Up to the erection of the gates to Akbar’s tomb at Secundra in the first ten years of Jehangir’s reign, A.D. 1605-1615, we have infinite mosaics of coloured marble, but no specimen of “inlay.” In Eti-mad-Doulah’s tomb, A.D. 1615-1628, we have both systems in great perfection. In the Taje and palaces at Agra and Delhi, built by Shah Jehan, A.D. 1628-1668, the mosaic has disappeared, being entirely supplanted by the “inlay.” It was just before that time that the system of inlaying called “pietro duro” was invented, and became the rage at Florence and, in fact, all throughout Europe; and we know that during the reign of the two last-named monarchs many Italian artists were in their service quite capable of giving instruction in the new art.

[552] Something of the same sort occurred when the Turks occupied Constantinople. They adapted the architecture of the Christians to their own purposes, but without copying. Vide ante, vol. ii. p. 528, et seqq.

553 The great bath was torn up by the Marquis of Hastings with the intention of presenting it to George IV., an intention apparently never carried out; but it is difficult to ascertain the facts now, as the whole of the marble flooring with what remained of the bath was sold by auction by Lord William Bentinck, and fetched probably 1 per cent. of its original cost; but it helped to eke out the revenues of India in a manner most congenial to the spirit of its governors.

554 Since the appointment of Sir John Strachey, the present enlightened Governor of the North West Provinces, I understand that this state of affairs is entirely altered. Both care and money are now expended liberally for the protection and maintenance of such old buildings that remain in the province.

555 Perfect plans of this palace exist in the War Department of India. It is a great pity the Government cannot afford the very few rupees it would require to lithograph and publish them. Without such plans it is very difficult to make any description intelligible. That in Keene’s ‘Handbook of Agra,’ though useful as far as it goes, is on too small a scale and not sufficiently detailed for purposes of architectural illustration.

556 When we took possession of the palace every one seems to have looted after the most independent fashion. Among others, a Captain (afterwards Sir John) Jones tore up a great part of this platform, but had the happy idea to get his loot set in marble as table tops. Two of these he brought home and sold to the Government for £500, and they are now in the India Museum. No one can doubt that the one with the birds was executed by Florentine, or at least Italian artists; while the other, which was apparently at the back of the platform, is a bad copy from Raphael’s picture of Orpheus charming the beasts. As is well known, that again was a copy of a picture in the Catacombs. There Orpheus is playing on a lyre, in Raphael’s picture on a violin, and that is the instrument represented in the Delhi mosaic. Even if other evidence were wanting, this would be sufficient to set the question at rest. It certainly was not put there by the bigot Aurungzebe, nor by any of his successors.

557 It ought in fairness to be added that, since they have been in our possession, considerable sums have been expended on the repair of these fragments.

558 The excuse for this deliberate act of Vandalism was, of course, the military one, that it was necessary to place the garrison of Delhi in security in the event of any sudden emergency. Had it been correct it would have been a valid one, but this is not the case. Without touching a single building of Shah Jehan’s there was ample space within the walls for all the stores and matériel of the garrison of Delhi, and in the palace and Selim Ghur ample space for a garrison, more than doubly ample to man their walls in the event of an émeute. There was ample space for larger and better ventilated barracks just outside the palace walls, where the Sepoy lines now are, for the rest of the garrison, who could easily have gained the shelter of the palace walls in the event of any sudden rising of the citizens. It is, however, ridiculous to fancy that the diminished and unarmed population of the city could ever dream of such an attempt, while any foreign enemy with artillery strong enough to force the bastioned enceinte that surrounds the town would in a very few hours knock the palace walls about the ears of any garrison that might be caught in such a trap.
The truth of the matter appears to be this: the engineers perceived that by gutting the palace they could provide at no trouble or expense a wall round their barrack-yard, and one that no drunken soldier could scale without detection, and for this or some such wretched motive of economy the palace was sacrificed!
The only modern act to be compared with this is the destruction of the summer palace at Pekin. That, however, was an act of red-handed war, and may have been a political necessity. This was a deliberate act of unnecessary Vandalism—most discreditable to all concerned in it.

559 A plan of this garden, with the Taje and all the surrounding buildings, will be found in the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. vii. p. 42.

560 From its design I cannot help fancying that this screen was erected after Shah Jehan’s death. It certainly looks more modern.

561 There are eight photographs of it in Capt. Lyon’s collection, and many also by others.

562 Page 478, et seqq.

563 If Lieut. Cole, instead of repeating plans and details of buildings which had already been published by Gen. Cunningham, had given us a plan and details of this unknown building, he might have rendered a service all would have been grateful for. What I know of it is principally derived from verbal communication with Col. Montgomerie, R.E.

564 ‘Embassy to Ava in 1795.’ London, 1800, 4to., 27 plates.

[565] ‘Journal of Embassy to Court of Ava,’ 1827. 4to., plates.

[566] ‘Mission to Court of Ava in 1855.’ 4to., numerous illustrations.

567 If any of our 1001 idle young men who do not know what to do with themselves or their money would only qualify themselves for, and carry out such a mission, it is wonderful how easily and how pleasantly they might add to our stores of knowledge. I am afraid it is not in the nature of the Anglo-Saxon to think of such a thing. Fox-hunting and pheasant-shooting are more congenial pursuits.

568 ‘Mahawanso,’ p. 71.

569 R. F. St. John, in the ‘Phœnix,’ vol. ii. p. 204, et seqq. Sir Arthur Phayre, in ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. xlii. p. 23, et seqq.

570 Sir A. Phayre, loc. cit.

571 Crawfurd’s ‘Embassy to Ava,’ vol. ii. p. 277.

572 It has recently become the fashion to doubt the holding of this convocation 100 years after the death of Buddha; but this very pointed allusion to it, in the early Burmese annals, so completely confirms what is said in the ‘Mahawanso,’ that the fact of its being held does not appear to me doubtful.

573 Yule, ‘Mission to Ava,’ p. 30.

574 Loc. cit., p. 32.

575 Yule’s ‘Marco Polo,’ vol. ii. p. 84, et seqq.

576 Yule, ‘Mission to Ava,’ p. 36. As almost all the particulars here mentioned are taken from this work as the latest and best, it will not be necessary to repeat references on every page.

[577] I of course except the arches in the tower at Buddh Gaya, which, I believe, were introduced by these very Burmese in 1305. See ante, p. 69.

578 ‘Mission to Ava,’ p. 65.

579 Literally “Golden great god.” Madu is the Burmese for Maha Deva.

580 See p. 58.

581 See account of the Great Bell at Rangûn, by the Rev. G. H. Hough, ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xiv. p. 270.

582 The above particulars are abstracted from a paper by Col. Sladen in the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iv. (N.S.) p. 406, with remarks by Col. Yule and others. It is curious that there is a discrepancy between the native and the European authorities as to the number of storeys—not mechanical, of course, but symbolical; whether, in fact, the basement should be counted as a storey, or not. The above I believe to be the correct enumeration. We shall presently meet with the same difficulty in describing Boro Buddor in Java.

583 ‘Mission to the Court of Ava,’ p. 169.

584 A view of this ruin will be found in Yule’s ‘Mission to Ava,’ plate 23.

585 Yule’s ‘Mission to Ava,’ p. 163.

586 The Siamese invariably change the Indian d into th.

587 For the particulars of this desiccation of the Valley of the Ganges, see the ‘Journal of the Geological Society,’ April, 1863.

588 This form is interesting to us as it is that adopted for the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park, the style of decoration of which is also much more like that employed in Siam than anything yet attempted out of doors in Europe.

589 “As for the Indian kings none of them ever led an army out of India to attempt the conquest of any other country, lest they should be deemed guilty of injustice.”—Arrian, ‘Indica,’ ch. ix.

590 ‘Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen.’ They have done me the honour of electing me an honorary member of their Society—an honour I feel all the more as it was quite unsolicited and unexpected.

591 There are twelve plates illustrating the same monument in Sir Stamford Raffles’ ‘History of Java.’

592 Sir S. Raffles’ ‘History of Java,’ pl. 24; text, vol. i. p. 465, 8vo. edition.

593 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. xvii. pp. 86, 87.

594 Bastian, ‘Die Völker der Oestlichen Asien,’ vol. i. p. 393.

595 Sir S. Raffles, vol. ii. p. 73.

596 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society’ (N.S.), vol. iii. p. 153.

597 There is little doubt that if the South Sea Islanders had at some distant epoch become civilized without European assistance, Captain Cook and the early explorers would have figured in their annals as English or French princes.

598 Sir S. Raffles’ ‘History of Java,’ vol. ii., 8vo. edition, p. 87, et seqq.

599 I am perfectly aware that this is not borne out by the translation of this inscription given by Dr. Friederich in vol. xxvi. of the ‘Verhandelingen;’ but being dissatisfied with its unmeaningness, I took it to my friend, Professor Eggeling, who is perhaps a better Sanscrit scholar than Friederich, and he fully confirms my view as above expressed.

600 Yule’s ‘Marco Polo,’ vol. ii. p. 264, et seqq.

601 Beal’s translation, p. 169.

602 Raffles, vol. ii. p. 77, et seqq.

603 About half of the photographs of the Batavian Society are filled with representations of these rude deities, which resemble more the images of Easter Island than anything Indian.

604 Raffles, ‘History of Java,’ vol. ii. p. 93.

605 The compilers of the catalogue of the photographs of the Batavian Society use 53 instead of 78 or 79 as the factor for converting Saka dates into those of the Christian Era. As, however, they give no reason for this, and Brumund, Leemans and all the best modern authors use the Indian index, it is here adhered to throughout.

606 These latter dates are taken from Raffles and Crawfurd, but as they are perfectly well ascertained, no reference seems needful.

607 ‘History of Java,’ vol. ii. p. 85.

608 ‘Dictionary of Indian Archipelago,’ p. 66.

609 ‘Boro Boudour,’ par Dr. C. Leemans. Leyden, 1874, p. 536. I quote from the French translation, having lent my original Dutch copy to Dr. Mayo of New College, Oxford. It was inadvertently packed among his baggage when he went to Fiji.

610 Ante, p. 641. Also ‘Verhandelingen,’ &c., vol. xxvi. p. 31, et seqq. One of his inscriptions—the fourth—was found in Java proper.

611 All these, or nearly all, have been identified by Dr. Leemans in the text that accompanies the plates.

[612] If Brian Hodgson would attempt it, he perhaps alone could explain all this vast and bewildering mythology. At present our means of identification is almost wholly confined to his representation in the second volume of the ‘Transactions’ of the Royal Asiatic Society, plates 1-4, and to the very inferior work of Schlagintweit, ‘Buddhismus in Thibet.’

613 ‘Indische Alterthumskunde,’ vol. iv. p. 467.

614 General Cunningham’s drawings, though nearly sufficient for anyone as familiar with all the styles as I have become, are not enough for anyone who is a stranger to the subject. I do not, indeed, know any Englishman who has the knowledge, combined with the powers of drawing, to be entrusted with this task. A Frenchman might be found who could do it, if he would be content to restrain his imagination.

615 Col. Yule, from whose account most of these particulars are taken (‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ 1862), calls it “nearly naked;” but a drawing by Wilsen (‘Verhandelingen,’ vol. xix. p. 166) I think settles the question, that he is intended to be represented as clothed.

616 An imperfect representation of this sculpture will be found in the ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vi. plate 53.

617 Sir S. Raffles’ ‘History of Java,’ vol. ii. plate 32.

618 The information here given is taken from Sir Stamford Raffles’ ‘History of Java,’ second edition, vol. ii. p. 17, et seqq. His plans, however, do not quite agree with the measurements in the text, a mistake arising, I believe, from the scales in the original drawings—now before me—being in Rheinland roods, which are not always converted into English feet.

619 ‘History of Java,’ vol. ii. p. 85. Crawfurd makes it 1266 to 1296; but no confidence can be placed on his dates for buildings.

620 ‘Boro Boeddoer,’ p. 433.

621 ‘Verhandelingen,’ &c., vol. xxxiii. p. 222.

622 ‘Boro Boeddoer,’ p. 439. ‘Verhandelingen,’ vol. xxxiii. p. 222.

623 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. xiii. p. 166.

624 ‘Boro Boeddoer,’ pp. 433-439.

625 This is by no means so certain; but till some one capable of observing visits the place, we must assume it.

626 Not however, of the more modern class of temples, inasmuch as when John Crawfurd visited Ava in 1826, he describes (p. 162, 2nd ed.) his visit to a temple just finished by the reigning monarch, which was adorned with a series of paintings on plaster representing scenes from the life of Buddha. Each of these had a legend in the modern Burmese character written over it; and it is curious to observe how nearly identical the descriptions are with those which might be written over any Buddhist series. All the scenes there depicted are not perhaps to be found at Bharhut or Sanchi, but all are at Amravati, and in the Gandhara monasteries, or are to be found among the sculptures at Boro Buddor.

627 ‘Boro Boeddoer,’ p. 433.

628 Col. Yule’s visit to Java, ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ 1861-1862, p. 3.

629 Sir S. Raffles’ ‘History of Java,’ plates 31 and 61, vol. ii. p. 49, et seqq.

630 Crawfurd, ‘Dict. Indian Archipelago,’ sub voce.

631 Both Sir S. Raffles and Crawfurd seem to be mistaken in ascribing them to the Saivites; they seem to have been misled by the appearance of a Phallus, but there is no lingam.

632 In the first three volumes of the photographs published by the Batavian Society are numerous examples of rude sculptures, which are indistinguishable from those of Easter Island. Crawfurd and other ethnologists do not seem to feel the least difficulty in extending the Malay race from Easter Island to Madagascar; and if this is so, it diminishes the improbabilities of another nearly allied family, extending through the Pacific Islands from Java to the American continent.

633 ‘Travels in Indo-China, Cambodia, and Laos,’ by Henri Mouhot. 2 vols. 8vo. Murray, 1864.

634 ‘Die Völker der Oestlichen Asien,’ von Dr. A. Bastian. Leipzig, 1866.

635 ‘Voyage d’Exploration en Indo-Chine,’ 2 vols. quarto and folio, Atlas of plates. Paris, 1873.

636 Few things are more humiliating to an Englishman than to compare the intelligent interest and liberality the French display in these researches, contrasted with the stolid indifference and parsimony of the English in like matters. Had we exercised a tithe of the energy and intelligence in the investigation of Indian antiquities or history, during the 100 years we have possessed the country, that the French displayed in Egypt during their short occupation of the valley of the Nile, or now in Cambodia, which they do not possess at all, we should long ago have known all that can be known regarding that country. Something, it is true, has been done of late years to make up for past neglect. General Cunningham’s appointment to the post of Archæological Surveyor of India, and that of Mr. Burgess to a similar office in the Bombay Presidency, are steps in the right direction, which, if persevered in, may lead to most satisfactory results. Many years must, however, elapse before the good work can be brought up to the position in which it ought to have been long ago, and meanwhile much that was most important for the purpose has perished, and no record of it now remains.

637 The work is translated in extenso in Abel Rémusat’s ‘Nouveaux Mélanges Asiatiques,’ vol. i. p. 78, et seqq.

638 Bastian, loc cit., vol. i. p. 393.

639 Bastian, vol. i. p. 429.

640 Nakhon is only the Siamese pronunciation of the Indian Nagara, Nuggur. Thom means “great.”

641 The French have navigated the lake in a large steamer, and published detailed charts of the river. Maps are also found in Mouhot’s ‘Travels;’ but the best are those which are found in the Atlas of Lieut. Garnier’s work above referred to.

642 Bastian, vol. i. p. 402.

643 Mr. Thomson was informed that during the rains the whole was flooded, and the temple could be reached in boats.

644 Outside the temple the sides of the causeways are in places ornamented with dwarf columns of circular form. They seem to simulate a bundle of eight reeds, and have tall capitals.

645 Garnier, loc. cit., vol. i. p. 120. Bastian, vol. i. pp. 400, 415, 438, &c.

646 In the extracts from the ‘Chinese Annals,’ translated by Abel Rémusat, in the first volume of the ‘Nouveaux Mélanges Asiatiques,’ he finds the earliest mention of the Cambodian kingdom in A.D. 616. From that period the accounts are tolerably consecutive to A.D. 1295, but before that nothing.

647 ‘Nouveaux Mélanges Asiatiques,’ vol. i. p. 103.

648 Bastian, vol. i. p. 404.

649 Garnier, ‘Voyage,’ &c., vol. i. p. 74.

650 ‘L’Art Khmer,’ p. 38.

651 It would be interesting if among these we could identify that one of which the Chinese traveller gives the following description:—“A l’est de la ville est un autre temple de l’esprit nommé Pho-to-li, auquel on sacrifie des hommes. Chaque année le roi va dans ce temple faire lui-même un sacrifice humain pendant la nuit.”—‘Nouveaux Mélanges Asiatiques,’ vol. i. p. 83.

652 At Buribun, on the other side of the lake, Dr. Bastian informs me there is a complete copy of the Nakhon Wat sculptures, carved in wood in the 16th century. The place was the residence of the kings of Cambodia after the fall of the capital, and as original art had then perished, they took this mode of adorning their palace. What a prize for any European museum!

653 ‘Nouveaux Mélanges Asiatiques,’ vol. i. p. 103. Garnier, woodcuts pp. 61 and 62.

654 ‘Journal of the Royal Geographical Society,’ vol. xxxv. p. 75.

655 The population of China is generally estimated at 400 millions of souls. This I believe to be a gross exaggeration, and would feel very much more inclined to put it at 300 millions, and of that number to estimate the Buddhists at 100 millions of souls. This, however, in the present state of our knowledge, is, and must be, mere guess-work. If we put down 50 millions for the Buddhist population of Thibet, Manchuria, Burmah, Siam, Cambodia, and Ceylon, we shall probably not err on the side of underestimating them, making 150 millions the total number of followers of this religion in the whole world, or one-eighth or one-tenth of the human race—not one-third or one-fourth, at which they are usually estimated.

656 The following description is abridged from that by Mr. A. Michie in his work entitled ‘The Siberian Overland Route,’ Murray, 1864. It is by far the most distinct I have met with. The larger woodcuts in this chapter are generally borrowed from his work. It must, however, be observed that his descriptions differ sometimes essentially from those hitherto current in European books, which were generally derived from the accounts of the Jesuits, who probably obtained their information from Chinese sources. It is generally safer to trust to the account of an educated gentleman describing what he saw, than to the essay of a mere scholar compiling from information conveyed in a foreign tongue.

657 ‘Nouveaux Mélanges Asiatiques,’ vol. i. p. 110.

658 The tower was destroyed in the recent Taeping rebellion.

659 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. vii. p. 331 (N.S.), vol. v. p. 14, et. seqq.

660 In the year 1870 I published in the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society’ (N.S.), vol. iv. p. 81, et seqq., an article on Indian chronology, in which my views on the subject were stated at greater length and more detail than it is proposed to do here. Being addressed to those who were supposed to be more or less familiar with the subject, the paper took the form of an argument, rather than of a statement, and is, consequently, difficult to follow by those to whom the subject is new. The following is an abstract of that paper, with such corrections as have occurred to me in the meanwhile, and stated in a consecutive form, and with only those details that seem necessary to render it intelligible. For further particulars on special points the reader is referred to the article itself.

661 The lists used for this statement of pre-Buddhist chronology are those compiled by James Prinsep, and published in his ‘Useful Tables’ in 1836. They were afterwards revised and republished by Ed. Thomas, in his edition of Prinsep’s works, in 1858. In a regular treatise on chronology it would be indispensable to refer to the Puranas themselves; in a mere statement of results these tables are amply sufficient.

662 Crawfurd’s ‘Embassy to Ava,’ vol. ii. p. 274.

663 Bigandet’s ‘Life of Gaudama,’ p. 323.

664 ‘Embassy to Ava,’ loc. cit.

665 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vi. p. 715.

666 Unfortunately the Chinese annals, to which we generally look for assistance in our difficulties, are not likely to afford us any in this. Confucius was born 551 B.C., and died 478; he was consequently only eight years old when Buddha died, and in order to give Buddha the necessary precedence in date, the Buddhists boldly added five centuries to this, placing him about 1000 B.C. This struggle between truth and falsehood led to such confusion that in the 7th century Hiouen Thsang wrote: “Depuis le Nirvana jusqu’aujourd’hui les uns comptent 1200 ans, les autres 1500 ans: il y en a qui affirment qu’il s’est écoulé plus de 900, mais que le nombre de 1000 n’est pas encore complet.” (‘Histoire,’ p. 131. ‘Vie et Voyages,’ i. 335.) The first is the nearest, according to our ideas. He was writing apparently in 1190 A.B. It may be 1200, if it was written after his return to China; but from this confusion it is evident no reliance can be placed on any dates he may quote from the Nirvana.

667 ‘Embassy to Ava.’ Appendix.

668 Vishnu Purana, p. 463.

669 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iv. (N.S.) p. 85.

670 Crawfurd’s ‘Embassy to Ava,’ vol. ii. p. 277.

671 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vii. p. 261; ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. xii. p. 232; Cunningham’s ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. v. p. 20, &c., &c.

672 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vi. p. 714.

673 Wilson’s ‘Vishnu Purana,’ Second Edition, vol. iv. p. 200; see also p. 232.

674 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. v. p. 42 and 47.

675 As the commencement of this era is not coincident with the years we employ, but about half-way between 78 and 79, either of these figures may be employed in converting years of the Christian Era into those of the Saka or Ballabhi, or Gupta Samvats. Throughout this work I have used the latter figure as that more generally in use.

676 This list is abstracted principally from one in vol. viii. p. 27, ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ quoting only such dates as appear certain. The earlier names are taken from a paper by Bhau Daji, vol. ix. p. 243 of the same journal.

677 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. v. p. 49.

678 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iv. (N.S.) p. 129.

679 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. viii. p. 119.

680 Ibid.

681 Ibid., vol. ix. p. 238; see also Bhandarkar, MS. translation.

682 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. viii. p. 28.

683 Essay on the Sah Kings of Saurastra, ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. xii. p. 16; and ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. xxiv. p. 503; see also Thomas’s ‘Prinsep,’ vol. ii. p. 95.

684 Thomas’s edition of ‘Prinsep,’ vol. i. p. 242, et seqq.; see also p. 365, et seqq.

685 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vii. p. 634.

686 The Vishnu Purana has Maunas, the Vayu and Matsya, Hunas. Wilson’s ‘Vishnu Purana,’ vol. iv. p. 209.

687 Wilson’s ‘Vishnu Purana,’ vol. iv. pp. 201-218.

688 I need hardly say that this is not universally admitted by Indian archæologists. Some indeed of the most eminent among them place the Guptas considerably earlier. My conviction, however, is that they never would have done so, had it not been that they place a mistaken confidence on a passage in a foreign author of the 11th century, translated by Rémusat to the following effect: “Quant au Goupta Kala (ère des Gouptas), on entend par le mot Goupta des gens qui, dit-on, étaient méchants et puissants, et l’ère qui porte leur nom est l’époque de leur extermination. Apparemment Ballabha suivit immédiatement les Gouptas, car l’ère des Gouptas commence aussi l’an 241 de l’ère de Saca.” (‘Journal Asiatique,’ 4me série, tom. iv. p. 286.)
Albiruni, from whom this passage is taken, lived at the court of Mahmúd of Ghazni, in the 11th century, and was learned beyond his compeers in the learning of the Hindus. He collected facts and dates with industry, and recorded them faithfully. But he would have been a magician if he could have unravelled the tangled meshes with which the Hindus had purposely obscured their chronology, and could have seen through all the falsifications invented six centuries earlier. We could not do so now without the aid of coins, dated inscriptions, and buildings. None of these were available in his day, and without their aid, the wonder is, not that he blundered in his inductions, but that he went so near the truth as he did. His facts and figures are valuable, and may generally be relied upon. His mode of putting them together and his inductions are, as generally, worthless—not from any fault of his, but because they had been purposely falsified by those who presented them to him.

689 ‘Indian Antiquary,’ vol. ii. p. 312.

690 ‘Journal Asiatique,’ series iv. vol. iv. p. 285.

691 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vii. p. 634.

692 Thomas’s ‘Prinsep,’ i. p. 250.

693 This date is from an unpublished copper-plate grant, in the possession of Gen. Cunningham, and is in addition to the three others of the same reign quoted in my previous paper, p. 112.

694 ‘Indian Antiquary,’ vol. ii. p. 312; see also vol. iii. p. 344.

695 ‘Topographia Christiana,’ lib. xi. p. 338, edit. Paris, 1707.

696 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. x. p. 60.

697 ‘Histoire des Huns,’ vol. i. part ii. lib. iv. pp. 325, et seqq.

698 Malcolm’s ‘Persia,’ vol. i. p. 118. Briggs’s translation of Ferishta, introd. lxxvii. et seqq.; Dow’s translation, p. 13.

699 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vi. 1837, p. 963; also Thomas’s ‘Prinsep,’ vol. i. p. 234.

700 Ibid., vol. v. plates 36 and 37; also Thomas’s ‘Prinsep,’ vol. i. p. 277, plate 23.

701 Thomas’s ‘Prinsep,’ vol. i. p. 407, et passim.

702 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ 1866, p. 273. See also Cunningham’s ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. iii. p. 136.

703 ‘Journal Asiatique,’ 4me série, tom. iv. p. 286.

704 Tod’s ‘Annals of Rajputana,’ vol. i. p. 801.

705 Lassen’s ‘Ind. Alt.’, vol. ii. p. 752, et seqq. to 987; Dowson, ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society’ (N.S.), vol. i. p. 247, et seqq.; Thomas’s ‘Prinsep,’ vol. i. p. 270-276; Cunningham’s ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. iii. p. 56; Babu Rajendra Mittra, ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. xliii. p. 372, &c., &c.

706 ‘Annals,’ vol. i. p. 216, et seqq. At p. 230 he quotes another account, which places the destruction of the Ballabhi era at 305, instead of 205, as in the previous statement. These are evidently clerical errors. If he had found another 405, it would probably have been correct within a year or so—405+319=724.

707 ‘Vie et Voyages,’ pp. 206, 254, 260; ‘Relations,’ &c., vol. ii. p. 163.

708 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. viii. p. 245.

709 Ibid., vol. viii. p. 245.

710 Forbes’ ‘Ras Mala,’ vol. i. p. 18; Tod, ‘Annals,’ vol. i. p. 230.

711 Elliot, ‘Historians of India,’ vol. i. p. 417.

712 Loc. cit., 432, et seqq.

713 Loc. cit., 441-42.

714 ‘Ras Mala,’ vol. i. p. 24; Tod’s ‘Travels,’ p. 149.

715 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. x. p. 70.

716 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vii. p. 972.

717 These lists were republished by Professor Dowson in the new series of the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. i. p. 253, et seqq., but with chronological additions that are by no means improvements.

718 The advantage of their publication was to strongly felt by the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society that in 1873 they, backed by a letter from Sir Walter, appealed to Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for India in Council, to sanction an expenditure not exceeding £200 for the purpose. It seems, however, that the finances of India could not bear the strain, for in August last a reply was received to the effect that “His Lordship regrets that he cannot consent to charge the public revenues of India with the cost of such an undertaking.” As the Indian Council are responsible, and know best what should be done and what refused, there is no more to be said about the matter, though to outsiders this seems slightly inconsistent with their grant of £2000 to Max Müller for doing nothing that he had not been well paid for doing beforehand. As no other means are available in this country, it is to be hoped that either the French or German Governments will take it up. They have always abundance of funds for such purposes; and had these inscriptions been collected by one of their countrymen, they would have been published without a year’s delay after having been brought home, although they have no interest in India that can for one moment be compared with ours.

719 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iv. p. 12.

720 ‘Report on Belgam and Kuladgi.’ p. 24.

721 ‘Mémoires des Contrées,’ &c., vol. ii. p. 150.

722 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iii. p. 206, et seqq.

723 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vi. p. 68.

724 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iv. p. 9.

725 ‘Vie et Voyages,’ p. 188.

726 ‘Vie et Voyages,’ p. 215.

727 ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’ vol. vi. p. 69.

728 ‘Vie et Voyages,’ p. 204.

729 ‘Relations,’ &c., vol. ii. p. 156.

730 Loc. cit., vol. ii. p. 42.

731 When I wrote last on the subject (‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iv. N.S.) I assumed the figures as they stand, as it did not then appear to me of much importance, and as this is the only arbitrary adjustment I have had occasion to make in the chronology, I have let this stand in the text, leaving the correction to be made when authority is found for it. The twenty years, more or less, do not affect any architectural question mooted in the preceding pages.

[732] ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xv. p. 87.

733 ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. ix. p. 150.

734 Loc. cit. p. 161.

735 General Cunningham hesitates between 17 and 24 A.D. for his death (‘Numis. Chron.,’ vol. viii. p. 175); Lassen brings him down to 40 A.D. (‘Ind. Alt.,’ vol. ii. p. xxiv).

736 ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. iii. p. 29, et seqq. Ed. Thomas’s Introduction to ‘Marsden,’ p. 46, et seqq.

737 ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. ix. p. 242.

738 ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. ii. p. 266.

739 Loc. cit. p. 68.

740 They are all given in Thomas’s edition of ‘Prinsep,’ vol. ii. p. 173, et seqq., to which the reader is referred.

741 ‘Archæological Reports,’ vol. v. p. 59.

742 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. vii. (N.S.) p. 376, et seqq.

743 Beal’s ‘Life of Fa Hian,’ Introduction, p. xx.

744 ‘Relations des Contrées,’ &c., vol. i. p. 190, et seqq.

745 I am indebted for this to Cunningham’s ‘Geography of India,’ p. 91.

746 Cunningham’s ‘Ancient Geography of India,’ p. 92.

747 One of the most useful manuals ever published for the use of students of Indian history and chronology was Prinsep’s ‘Useful Tables of Indian Dynasties, &c.’ They were republished by Mr. Thomas in his edition of ‘Prinsep,’ with considerable additions and many improvements by himself, but the edition is exhausted. There could hardly be any better service done for the cause, than if he or some one would republish them in a separate form, so as to render them generally available. It is a pity Government has no funds available for such a purpose, for I am afraid it would hardly pay as a bookseller’s speculation.

748 ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iv. (N.S.) p. 131, et seqq.

749 ‘Journal Asiatique,’ 4me série, tom. iv. p. 282.

750 Troyer’s translation of the ‘Raja Tarangini,’ vol. ii. p. 43. In Wilson’s translation it is said, “A different monarch from the Saccari Vicramaditya, though sometimes erroneously identified with that prince.”—‘Asiatic Researches’, vol. xv. p. 32.

751 Loc. cit. p. 76.

752 From Introduction to Turnour’s ‘Mahawanso,’ p. xxxiii., where the names, places of birth, and Bo-trees of the whole twenty-four are given.

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