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ixe that at Sanchi, the Tope at Amravati has been so completely destroyed that a traveller might ride over the mounds in which it is buried without sus- pecting what they covered, any more than those who, before the discoveries of Botta and Layard, looked on the mounds of Assyria guessed what treasures of antiquity -were concealed beneath their green slopes. In some respects it is fortunate that it is so, for so soon as a slab is uncovered, either by the monsoon rains or an accidental excavation, it is taken away,to be used as a door-step, or more frequently to be burned for lime by the incurious natives. The consequence of this is, that nothing of the central building probably now remains on the spot, and hardly any- thing of the inner enclosure ; ; but of the outer Rail there may still be enough to enable us to complete our restoration of it, and to fill up many of the incdnes which the imperfect materials now available have left in our descriptions. Although two of the Gateways at Sanchi have fallen, two others are still standing, almost quite perfect; and a quadrant of the Rail is entire, and so is the ‘bulk of the Tope itself. We have consequently no difficulty in assigning their proper place to all the fragments of sculpture, nor any‘in comprehending the general appearance or form of the building. At Amravati the case is widely . different. It is probable that many of the slabs which Colonel Mackenzie first saw in 1797, and afterwards drew in 1718, were then in situ, but he has left no written © description of his excavations,* and it is only in the rarest possible instances that he has written in pencil on his drawings such brief indications as “inner circle” or “ outer circle.” Beyond this, there is no explanation of his plan. The slabs recovered by Sir Walter Elliot, which form the bulk of the available materials, had all been removed probably in the twelfth or thirteenth century from their original site, and built into a little chapel, of which they formed the walls, so nothing was to be learned from them. The task, however, is by no means so difficult as it at first sight appears. ee there are numerous analogies with other buildings which are * The late Professor Wilson, % who had long chargé of the Mackenzie MSS., and knew more about them than anyone else, says, in his Ariana Antiqua, p. 32., “ T have not found any description of it (the Tope at Amravati) “ amongst his papers, but from a few brief memoranda it appears to have been visited by “ him repeatedly, and in 1816 to have been measured and surveyed.” 150 . THE TOPE AT AMRAVATL evident at a glance; but the circumstance that rendered the restoration most easy- arose from the practice common to Indian architects of repeating everywhere repre- sentations of their main buildings as. ornaments to the various parts of it. These, as will afterwards be explained, not only suggest the form, but confirm the restoration in a most satisfactory manner. The Amravati Tope first attracted is attention of Colonel Mackenzie when on a tour of duty in. the district in the year 1797. It seems that some two or three years previous to his visit the Rajah of Chintapilly, attracted by the sanctity of a temple dedicated to Siva, under the title of Amaregvara,* determined to erecta city on the spot, and on looking for building materials for his new capital, opened this and several other mounds in the neighbourhood, and also utilized the walls of the old city of Durnacotta. or Dharanikotta, which stood about half a mile to the westward of the site of the new. city.t Many of the antiquities perished in the process, and ‘ large quantities of the stones were used by the Raja in building his new temples and palaces, but several sculptured slabs still remained in situ. These attracted the Colonel’s attention so strongly that he subsequently - communicated an account of them to the Asiatic Society of Bengal,} and afterwards returned to the spot in 1816. Being now Surveyor-General of Madras he employed all the means at his. disposal during the two following years to the elucidation of the principal temple, which he now styles Dipaldinna, and translates as meaning “ Hill of Lights.” The results of his labours are careful plans of the building and maps of the surrounding country, | together with eighty very carefully-finished drawings of the sculptures. These were made by his assistants, Messrs. Hamilton, Newman, and Burke, and are unsurpassed for accuracy and’ beauty of finish by any drawings of their class that were ever executed in India. ‘Three copies were made of all these drawings. One was sent to the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, another was deposited in Madras, and the third sent home to the Court of Directors, in whose library it still remains. As no text or description accompanies these drawings, they have attracted but little attention, probably because of this deficiency, and the consequent difficulty of understanding the form of the monument or the position of the fragments. At the same. time Colonel Mackenzie sent several ‘specimens of the sculptures to the three museums just mentioned, and they have remained their principal ornamenits to this day. But, except an attempt to translate two of the inscriptions, which appeared in Prinsep’s Journal in 18387,§ very little notice seems to have been taken of them. Dose sa - Fortunately, feast when Mr., now Sir Walter Elliot, was Commissioner in Guntur, in 1840, he determined to follow up what Colonel Mackenzie had so well begun, He sesmied a portion of the monument which had not before been touched, * Hence the full-length name of the place is AmareSvarapuram. Anglice, Amresbury. ; { These and many other historical particulars in this paper are gleaned from two letters communicated by Colonel Mackenzie to Mr. Buckingham, published by him in the “ Calcutta Journal,” in March 1822, They were afterwards” reprinted in “ Allen’s Asiatic Journal,” in May 1823, and as the latter publication is generally accessible while the former. is not, all my references to these letters will be taken from it. t See Asiatie Researches, vol. 1X. p. 272, et seq. § Journal Asiatic Society, Bengal, vol. VI. p. 218. INTRODUCTION. 151 and sent down to Madras a large collection of the sculptures, where they lay exposed to the sun and rain for fourteen years,* till they were ultimately sent home to this country about the year 1856. Unfortunately they arrived here in the troublous times of the Indian. Mutiny, and just in the interval between the death of the old East India Company and the establishment of the new Indian Council. There was no proper place for their reception, and the greater part of them were consequently stowed away in the coach-house of Fife House, where they remained buried under rubbish of all sorts till accidentally I heard of their existence in January 1867. With the zealous co-operation of Dr. Forbes Watson and the officers of his establishment, I had. them all brought out into the open air and photographed to a scale of one-twelfth the real size, and this was done so exactly that the photographs can be fitted together almost as well as the real stones could be. With these materials I set to work to restore the building; but though I had considerable knowledge of similar buildings, both older and more modern, I should not have succeeded but for the circunistance just mentioned, that among the sculptures themselves there are numerous miniature representations of the building itself and of its different parts, quite sufficiently cor- rectly drawn to be recognized. With all these aids I believe I can now assign the true place and use to at least nine-tenths of the 160 fragments the India Museum possesses, and feel very little doubt that I might be able to recognize the position of all; but the process is slow and difficult, and requires more time and study than perhaps the value of the additional information now to be obtained would justify. The position of the Amravati Tope will be easily understood from the map (Plate XLVI.). It is situated on the right or south bank of the Kistnah river, about: sixty miles from its mouth, and nearly opposite to its junction to the Moony Air river. The Tope itself stands about half a mile to the eastward of the old town of Daranacotta, or Dharanikotta—the magic city—and unfortunately in the middle of the modern town of Amravati, to which circumstance it owes its destruction. To ’ the westward of the town, a little more distant, is another mound, called Cootchtippa, . which has not yet been explored; and to the south a third, called Nuckadeverdinna, which was dug up, and the. materials used in building the new town. To the westward of the old town, near the Cootchtippa mound, are a great number of those rude circles of stone which were the burying-places of at least some of the inhabi- tants of the old city. A. still “greater number of these, however, are. found at a_ distance of between four and five miles to the south-eastward, where they cover the roots of the hills in great numbers. _ They range apparently from 24 to ~ 32 feet in diameter, and when dug into have always yielded cinerary urns, burnt bones, and other indications of being burying-places. One of these has already been given from Colonel Mackenzie’s work (Woodcut, No. 7.), where several of those at Amravati are drawn. They are, however, all alike ‘in character, not only * Selections from the Madras Records, 2nd series, vol. XXXIX. p. 195. : + In the map they are talled “Circular Tumuli.” This they certainly are not, as they are not raised in the centre. They are literally stone circles, but as the map is a fac-simile, I have thought it better to alter nothing.