elegant example faces a Jaina temple at Muda- son Dasaratha, and dedicated to Ajivikas, a bidri, not far from Mangalore.

Topes.-Stupas, known as dagabas in Ceylon and commonly called Topes in North India, were constructed either for the safe custody of relics hidden in a chamber often near the base or to mark the scene of notable events in Buddhist or Jaina legends. Though we know that the ancient Jainas built stupas, no specimen of Jaina stupas is now extent. A notable structure of this kind which existed until recent times, was the Jaina stupa which stood on the Kankali Tila site at Muttra and yielded a large number of Jaina sculptures now deposited in the Provincial Museum at Lucknow. Of those belonging to the Buddhists, the great Tope of Sanchi in Bhopal is the most intact and entire of its class. It consists of a low circular drum supporting a hemispherical dome of less diameter. Round the drum is an open passage for circumambulation, and the whole is enclosed oy a massive stone railing with lofty gates facing the cardinal points. The gates are essentially wooden in character, and are carved, inside and out, with elaborate sculptures. The original stupa, which was of brick and not more than half the present dimensions, was apparently erected by Asoka at the same time as his lioncrowned pillar near the south gate, but as Sir John Marshall's recent explorations have conclusively shown, its outer casing of stone, the railing and the gateways were at least 150 and 200 years later, respectively. Other famous Buddhist stupas that have been found are those of Sarnath, Bharhut between Allahabad and Jubbulpore, Amravati in the Madras Presidency, and Piprahwa on the Nepalese frontier. The tope proper entirely disappeared, having for building villages, and what remained of the rail has been removed to the Calcutta Museum. The bas-reliefs on this rail which contain short inscriptions and thus enable one to identify the scenes sculptured with the Jatakas or Birth Stories of the Buddha give it a unique value. The stupa at Amravati also no longer exists, and portions of its rail, which is unsurpassed in point of elaboration and artistic merit, are now in the British and Madras Museums. The stupa at Piprahwa was opened by Mr. W. C. Peppe in 1898, and a steatite or soap-stone reliquary with an inscription on it was unearthed. The inscription, according to speaks of the relies being of the and enshrined by his kinsmen, the Sakyas. If this interpretation is correct, we have here one of the stupas that were erected over the ashes of Buddha immediately after his demise.

at

Bharhut has been utilised

many scholars, Buddha himself

naked sect founded by Malinkhali putta Gosala. The next earliest caves are those of Bhaja, Pitalkhora and cave No. 9 at Ajanta and No. 19 at Nasik. They have been assigned to 200 B.C. by Fergusson and Dr. Burgess. But there is good reason to suppose from Sir John Marshall's recent researches and from epigraphic considerations that they are considerably more modern. The Buddhist caves are of two types-the chaityas or chapel caves and viharas or monasteries for the residence of monks. The first are with vaulted roofs and horse-shoe shaped windows over the entrance and have interiors consisting of a nave and side aisles with a small stupa at the inner circular end. They are thus remarkably similar to Christian basilicas. The second class consist of a hall surrounded by a number of cells. In the later viharas there was a sanctum in the centre of the back wall containing a large image of Buddha. Hardly a chaitya is found without one or more viharas adjoining it. Of the Hindu cave temples that at Elephanta near Bombay is perhaps the most frequented. It is dedicated to Siva and is not earlier than the 7th century A.D. But by far the most renowned cave-temple of the Hindus is that known as Kailasa at Ellora. It is on the model of a complete structural temple but carved out of solid rock. It also is dedicated to Siva and was excavated by the Rashtrakuta king, Krishna I, (A. D. 768), who may still be seen in the paintings in the ceilings of the upper porch of the main shrine. Of the Jaina caves the earliest are at Khandgiri and Udayagiri; those of the mediæval type, in Indra Sabha at Ellora; and those of the latest period, at Ankai in Nasik. The ceilings of many of these caves were once adorned with fresco paintings. Perhaps, the best preserved among these are those at Ajanta, which were exe cuted at various periods between 350-650 A.D. and have elicited high praise as works of art. Copies were first made by Major Gill, but most of them perished by fire at the Crystal Palace in 1866. The lost ones were again copied by John Griffiths of the Arts School, Bombay, half of whose work was similarly destroyed by a fire at South Kensington. They were last copied by Lady Herringham during 1909-11. Her pictures, which are in full scale, are at present exhibited at the Indian Section of the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, and have been reproduced in a volume brought out by the India Society.

Gandhara Monuments.-On the north-west frontier of India, anciently known as Gandhara, are found a class of remains, ruined monasteries and buried stupas, among which we notice for the first time representations of Buddha and the Buddhist pantheon. The free use of Corinthian capitals, friezes of nude Erotes bearing a long garland, winged Atlantes without number, and a host of individual motifs clearly establish the influence of Hellenistic art. The mound at Peshawar, locally known as Shah-ji-ke-Dheri, which was explored in 1909, brought to light several interesting sculptures of this school together with a reliquary casket, the most remarkable bronze object of the Gandhara period. The inscription on the casket left no douht as to the mound being the stupa raised

Caves. Of the rock excavations which are one of the wonders of India, nine-tenths belong to Western India. The most important groups of caves are situated in Bhaja, Bedsa, Karli, Kanheri, Junnar, and Nasik in the Bombay Presidency, Ellora and Ajanta in Nizam's Dominions, Barabar and Nagarjuni 16 miles north of Gaya, and Udayagiri and Khandagiri 20 miles from Cuttack in Orissa. The caves belong to the three principal sects into which ancient India was divided, eiz., the Buddhists, Hindus and Jainas. The earliest caves so far dis covered are those of Barabar and Nagarjuni which were excavated by Asoka and his grand-over the bones of Buddha by the Indo-Scy

thian king Kanishka. They were presented evolved all the modern vernacular scripts of by Lord Minto's Government to the Buddhists India. The Kharoshthi was written from right of Burma and are now enshrined at Mandalay. to left, and was a modified form of an ancient To about the same age belong the stupas at Aramaic alphabet introduced into the Punjab Manikyala in the Punjab opened by Ranjit during the period of the Persian domination Singh's French Generals, Ventura and Court, in the 5th century B.C. It was prevalent up to in 1830. Some of them contained coins of the 4th century A.D., and was supplanted by Kanishka.

Structural Temples. Of this class the earliest examples are the Varaha temple at Deogarh, District Jhansi, another temple at Sanchi, the brick temples at Bhitargaon in the

the Brahmi. The earliest dateable inscriptions are the celebrated edicts of Asoka to which a reference has been made above. One group of these has been engraved on rocks, and another on pillars. They have been found from district of Cawnpore, all of which belong to the Shahbazgarhi 40 miles north-east of Peshawar Gupta period and a later one at Tigowa in the to Nigliva in the Nepal Tarai, from Girnar in Central Provinces. In South India we have Kathiawar to Dhauli in Orissa, from Kalsi in the

De two more examples, viz., Lad Khan and Durga temples at Aihole in Bijapur, the latter of which cannot be later than the eighth century A.D. The only common characteristic is flat roots without spires of any kind. In other respects they are entirely different and already here we mark the beginning of the two styles, IndoAryan and Dravidian, whose differences become more and more pronounced from the 7th cen

Lower Himalayas to Siddapur in Mysore, show. ing by the way the vast extent of territory held by him. The reference in his Rock Edicts to the five contemporary Greek Princes, Antio chus II. of Syria, Ptolemy Philadelphus, and so forth is exceedingly interesting, and fixes B.C. 269 as the date of his coronation. His Ruminindei pillar inscription, again, discovered in Nepal Tarai, now settles, beyond all doubt,

tury onwards. In the Indo-Aryan style, the the birth-place of Buddha which was for long most prominent ones tend to the perpendicular, disputed. Another noteworthy record is the and in the Dravidian to the horizontal. The inscription of the Besnagar pillar. The pillar salient feature of the former again is the cur- had been known for a long time but Sir John vilinear steeple and of the latter, the pyramidal Marshall was the first to notice the inscription tower. The most notable examples of the first on it. It records the erection of this column, kind are to be found among the temples of Bhu. which was a Garuda pillar, in honour of the baneswar in Orissa, Khajarah in Bundelkhand, god Vasudeva by one Heliodoros, son of Dion, Osia in Jodhpur, and Dilwara on Mount Abu, who is described as an envoy of King Antial

One of the best known groups in the Dravidian style is that of the Mamallapuram Raths, of Seven Pagodas, on the seashore to the south of Madras. They are each hewn out of a block of granite, and are rather models of temples than raths. They are the earliest examples of typical Dravidian architecture, and belong to the 7th century. To the same age has to be assigned the temple of Kailasarath at Conjeeveram, and to the following century some of the temples at Aihole and Pattadkal of the Bijapur District, Bombay Presidency, and the monolithic temple of Kailasa at Ellora, referred to above. Of the later Dravidian style the great - temple at Tanjore and the Srirangam temple of Trichinopoly are the best examples.

Intermediate between these two main styles comes the architecture of the Deccan, called Chalukyan by Fergusson. In this style the plan becomes polygonal and star-shaped instead of quadrangular; and the high-storeyed spire is converted into a low pyramid in which the horizontal treatment of the Dravidian is combined with the perpendicular of the IndoAryan. Some fine examples of this type exist at Dambal, Rattihali, Tilliwalli and Hangal ir Dharwar, Bombay Presidency, and at Ittag and Warangal in Nizam's Dominions. But it is in Mysore among the tempies at Hallebid, Belur, and Somnathpur that the style is found in its full perfection.

Inscriptions. We now come to inscriptions, of which numbers have been brought to light in India. They have been engraved on varieties of materials, but principally on stone and copper. The earliest of these are found incised in two distinct kinds of alphabet, known as Brahmi and Kharoshthi. The Brahmi was read from left to right, and from it have been

kidas of Taxila. Heliodoros is herein called a Bhagavata, which shows that though a Greek he had become a Hindu and presumably a Vaishnava. Another inscription worth noticing and especially in this connection is that of Cave No. 10 at Nasik. The donor of this cave, Ushavadata, who calls himself a Saka and was thus an Indo-Scythian, is therein spoken of as having granted three hundred thousand kine and sixteen villages to gode and Brahmans and as having annually fed one hundred thou

sand Brahmans. Here is another instance of a

foreigner having embraced Hinduism. Thus for the political, social, economical and religious history of India at the different periods the Inscriptions are invaluable records, and are the only light but for which we are 'forlorn and olind.'

Saracenic Architecture. This begins in India with the 13th century after the permanent occupation of the Muhammadans. Their first mosques were constructed of the materials of Hindu and Jaina temples, and sometimes with comparatively slight alterations. The

mosque called Adhai-din-ka-jhompra at Ajmer

and that near the Qutb Minar are instances of this kind. The Muhammadan architecture

of India varied at different periods and under

the various dynasties, imperial and local. The

early Pathan architecture of Delhi was massive

and at the same time was characterised by elaborate richness of ornamentation. The Qutb Minar and tombs of Altamsh and Ala-ud-din Khilji are typical examples. Of the Sharqi style we have three mosques in Jaunpur with several tombs. At Mandu in the Dhar State, a third form of Saracenic architecture sprang up, and we have here the Jami Masjid, Hoshang's tomb, Jahaz Mahal and Hindola Mahal as the most notable instances of the secular and

46

ecclesiastical styles of the Malwa Pathans. The Muhammadans of Bengal again developed their own style, and Pandua, Malda, and Gaur teem with the ruins of the buildings of this type, the important of which are the Adina Masjid of Sikandar Shah, the Elakhi mosque, Kadam Rasul Masjid, and so

forth. The Bahmani

dynasty of Gulbarga and Bidar were also great
builders, and adorned their capitals with impor-
tant buildings. The most striking of these is
the great mosque of Gulbarga, which differs
from all mosques in India in having the whole
central area covered over so that what in others
would be an open court is here rooted by sixty-
Of the various forms
three small domes.
which the Saracenic architecture assumed, "
says Fergusson, "that of Ahmedabad may
probably be considered to be the most elegant."
It is notable for its carved stone work; and the
work of the perforated stone windows in Sidi
Sayyid's mosque, the carved niches of the
minars of many other mosques, the sculptured
Mihrabs and domed and panelled roofs is so
exquisite that it will rival anything of the sort
executed elsewhere at any period. No other
style is so essentially Hindu. In complete con
trast with this was the form of architecture
employed by the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bija-
pur. There is here relatively little trace of
Hindu forms or details. The principal buildings
now left at Bijapur are the Jami Masjid,
Gagan Mahal, Mihtar Mahal, Ibrahim Rauza
and mosque and the Gol Gumbaz. Like their
predecessors, the Pathans of Delhi, the Moghuls
were a great building race. Their style first
began to evolve itself during the reign of Akbar
in a combination of Hindu and Muhammadan
features. Noteworthy among the emperor's
buildings are the tomb of Humayun, and the
palaces at Fatehpur Sikri and Agra. Of
Jehangir's time his mosque at Lahore and the
tomb of Itimad-ud-daula are the most typical
structures. "The force and originality of the
style gave way under Shah Jahan to a delicate
elegance and refinement of detail."

And it

was during his reign that the most splendid of
the Moghul tombs, the Taj Mahal at Agra, the
tomb of his wife Mumtaz Mahal, was con-
structed. The Moti Masjid in Agra Fort is
another surpassingly pure and elegant monu
ment of his time.

Department.-As the
Archæological
archeological monuments of India must at
tract the attention of all intelligent visitors, they
would naturally feel desirous to know something
of the Archæological Department. The work
of this Department is primarily two-fold, con
servation, and research and exploration. Nonc
but spasmodic efforts appear to have been made
by Government in these directions till 1870 when
they established the Archæological Survey of
India and entrusted it to General (afterwards

were

The Sir) Alexander Cunningham, who was also the first Director-General of Archæology. next advance was the initiation of the local Surveys in Bombay and Madras three years after. The work of these Surveys, however, was res tricted to antiquarian research and deseription of monuments, and the task of conserving old buildings was left to the fitful efforts of the local Governments, often without expert guidance or control. It was only in 1878 that the Government of India under Lord Lytton awOkе to this deplorable condition, and sanctioned a sum of 3 lakhs to the repair of monuments in United Provinces, and soon after appointed a conservator Major Cole, who did useful work for three years. Then a reaction set in, and his post and that of the Director-General abolished. The first systematic step towards recognising official responsibility in conservation matters was taker by Lord Curzon's Government, who established the seven Archæolorical Circles that now obtain, placed them on a permanent footing and united them together under the control of a Director-General, provision being also made for subsidising local Governments out of imperial funds, when necessary. The Ancient Monuments Preservation Act was passeu for he protection of historic monuments and relics especially in private possession and also for State control over the excavation of ancient sites and traffic in antiquities. Under the direction of Sir a comprehensive and systematic John Marshall, Kt., C.I.E., Director-General ot Archæology, campaign of repair and excavation has been prosecuted, and the result of it is manifest in the present altered conditions of many old and historic buildings and in the scientific excavation of buried sites such as Taxila, Pataliputra, Sanchi in the Bhopal State, Sarnath near Benares, and in the Indus Valley at Harappa in the Punjab and Mohenjo Daro in Sind. Of all these works those of most general interest are the Mohenjo Daro excavations for here the Archæological Department have unearthed remains of pre-historic cities dating back to 3000 В.С. and further. The Finance Department of the Government of India invited the Legislative Assembly in March 1926, to allocate half a crore of rupees from a non-recurring surplus to form there should be a regular income of two and an endowment fund for excavation, so that a half lakhs of rupees for the purpose. Strong advanced against Brahmin opposition the proposal and it fell through, but other measures have been taken to ensure that the researches in the Indus Valley shall be pursued in the an eminent best possible manner on the revenue grants available. The Secretary of State recently sanctioned the appointment of Orientalist and explorer to take charge of the Mohonjo Daro excavations. He arrived in India in November, 1926.

was

Indian Time.

TIDAL CONSTANTS.

The approximate standard time of High Water may be found by adding to, or subtract Ing from, the time of High Water at London Bridge, given in the calendar, the correction given as below: