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, which, though very much broken, is a better and more: perfect piece of sculpture than the other, tending to show, as other circumstances do, that the different quadrants were not all exactly of the same age. “ The lowest figure on the left hand of the same Plate contains ‘a (aan we have not yet’ met with. The principal object here is a. representation of the sacred feet ~ enveloped in the folds of the Naga, and worshipped by. Naga men and women. — The emblem has unfortunately disappeared from Fig. 1., Plate LXXX. This - - is to be regretted, as it seems a beautiful fragment, and the two children below, the panel in which it ought to appear, betoken something new. Fig, 2. and 3. of this Plate, and Fig. 3. of Plate LXXXI. ., instead of the emblems we are usually accustomed to, contain two medallions. The upper, representing the worship of the Horse, the lower Buddha seated eee lee ed, surrounded by listeners or adorers. . As. we have frequently had occasion to temark, the Horse plays an | important part in the sculptures at Amravati. It is once represented as honoured at Sanchi (Plate XXXV.), but this form of worship occurs here several times, but nowhere so pro- -minently as in these three Dagobas. (It is to be presumed that there was a fourth.) It is‘not easy to. say what we are to understand from the prominence of the Horse in such a position a8 this. Is it an importation from Scythia, brought by immigrants from that country? Is it.the Horse of the Sun, or. of Poseidon? Is — it the AvalokiteSvara of the Thibetan. fables? Some one must answer who is more familiar than I am with Eastern mythology. At present it will be sufficient to recall to memory how important a part the Horse sacrifice or ASwamedha plays in _ the -Mahdbharata, and in all the mythic history of India. ~ What is still more curious is: that the worship of the Horse still seéms to linger in. remote parts of India. At least in arecent work by Mr. Hislop, missionary at Nagpore, edited by Sir R. Temple, he describes the religior, of the Gonds in the following nine words :— All introduce figures of the horse in their ,worship.” Other instances might no ~ doubt be found if looked for, but the gubject is new and unthought of. Tn all these Dagobas in which the (nore occurs, the objects next in importance ma * This Slab has been so long exposed on the external wall of Fife House, that it is nearly destroyed, and its details can but with difficulty be made out. co2 204-0 | THE TOPE AT AMRAVATL are the sacred feet. -They occur on each side of the five steles under a great umbrella, but what the connexion between the two may be is by no means clear. The principal representation on the Dagoba, Fig. 1., Plate LXXXI., is a repetition of the scenes depicted in the upper circle, Plate LXII..—the worship of the relic casket by the Naga Raja; but so far as can be made out, there does not seem to be anything in the other bas-reliefs on this Dagoba which would enable us to identify the relic, or say whence it came. So far as execution is concerned, this is one of the most delicate as well as one of the best. _ preserved i belonging to the series.* The remaining Dagohi Fig. 2., Plate LXXXL., is the most essentially Buddhist of the whole, using the word in the sense in which we now understand it. Buddha is seated in his usual cross-legged attitude in the place of honour, and reappears in easily recognizable forms in the sculptures above. Yet, if I mistake not, on the: very top of the dome there are the remains of a great Naga, in a position more prominent than on any other Dagoba of this class. In all these Dagobas, when sufficiently perfect to enable the emblems to be - made out, it appears that the central stele of the five was crowned by a miniature ~ Dagoba. But on the lower part of the steles (Plate LXXX.), on the left-hand lower corner, there are in the centre a Dagoba, on each side of that the two Wheels, and ‘then two ‘Trees, and in others, a figure adorns the base of éach stele, but without any mode by which he or they can be distinguished. Other combinations are found; both | on those represented here and on those in the Mackenzie drawings, but all of the same character, and apparently without any important significance. _ We shall have occasion to refer again to these rainialare Dagobas when speaking of the central one, for the restoration of which they are most important. Even in themselves, however, they are as interestmg as any of the slabs at Amravati, and: as important as illustrations of the form of Buddhist art in the fourth or fifth -century of our era. * After they were photographed, the marbles were. returned to the coach-house, and afterwards were ivansferred to‘the Military Stores, when the Fife House establishment was broken up. In neither position were they, nor are they accessible; theré are, consequently, muny points which my more educated eye might enable me now to detect, which I overlooked when I had access to them. . ae ors iy ¢ c ir, b oF ane Let sz, “tO y é Yow x WY XY wy y, a BAK GL YY WXXXT avd “y Sn Ee as, ORLA PV EMR ANN ICT DPI ‘S7HaN] gseay / s . . , . . 7 . \ 7 ? “ ‘ . ? . e Sony aM eth : S34ton) BL tape a, st ‘, a i ji : ; * e - ne bs = + a _& * La - - ¥ 7 a - s ; #," he y a.) * ’ t4 a jake x ir = os = Pa ' > ” . J #. 5. . My ‘ * “4 re si . ‘IIXXX1 SL Id ae 2 TS Sr a Se Oe a a e DESCRIPTION OF PLATES. 205 PLATES LXXXIT. ann LXXXIII. WE have unfortunately very few fragments of the frieze that crowned the inner Rail. Like that of the outer, it seems to have been one of the most elegant as well as interesting parts of the whole. The India Museum contains no specimen of the best’ quadrant, but one found its way by accident into the British Museum,* -and is photographed to an enlarged scale in Fig. 1. Plate LXXXII. Two others:are repre- sented by drawings in the Mackenzie Collection, and are reproduced in Figs. 1. and 2. ' Plate LXXXITI. Figs. 6. and 7. Plate LXXXII. belong probably to a different quadrant, and Figs. 2. and 3. on the same’ Plate are certainly from’ another part: of the enclosure from that. répresented in the three fragments just enumerated. The whole frieze. was very ingeniously divided into compartments by conventional Rails, with three discs or knobs. The central one is sculptured, but the wpper and— lower knobs are merely lotus flowers, like those of the great Rail. Between each. of these pillars is a small compartment, containing a man and a woman or an object of worship, while the larger compartments always contain 4 historical subject. I am not aware that’ any. more: ingenious or pleasing mode of treating such a “sculptural representation is to be found in any other building in any part of the- world. a In Fig. 1. Plate LX XXII. we have, first on the left, the man bearing the relic on his head, and men, women, and Nagas following in wild dance (vide-ante, Plates LXVIE., LXXIII.). In the centre we have Buddha, or rather Prince Siddhartha, with his horse, apparently blessing little children. In the third a Bodhisattwa—he has no i to a Naga people, all of whom have snakes at the back of their . heads. ” In the’ small compartments we have on the left a Hindu man and woman in ithe usual costume; .on the right a man and woman in a costume betokening a_ ‘colder climate; but in order to ‘prevent its being understood to be in a colder country, | ‘a palm tree is introduced between them. Are they Scythians? Do they bring the * The history of this slab is so curious that it may be worth recording. When I was at the Crystal Palace, Monti the sculptor one day asked me to come to his place in Great Marlborough Street to see a piece of Indian sculpture which belonged to a friend of his, and had been left in his charge. I was so struck with its beauty that I: pot it moulded, and three casts were taken. One was presented to the Crystal Palace, one to the Asiatic Society, and a third to the India Museum. The two first were destroyed in the fire in December 1866; the third luckily was safe. When I became familiar with the Amravati marbles, I at dnee recognized this slab as belonging to that Tope, and immediately set to work to try and find out what had become of it, but for a long time in vain. One day, however, talking to Mr. Vaux, of the British Museum, about the Amravati discovery, he said, “ We have a slab with a Gupta inscription on it in the cellars,” and sent a man with me to point it out, when I at once recognized my old friend. It seems an officer of the Museum was getting his hair cut in Great. Marlborough Street, when the barber, knowing who his customer was, asked him to look at a piece of marble lying in the. back yard, The officer had the good taste to see its value, got a grant from the trustees for 10/., and purchased it. I may mention that there is also in the British Museum a figure from ~ one of the Gates at Sanchi, though how it got there nobody knows. -There is nothing from Sanchi in the India Museum. This therefore is the only opportunity that exists in this country of comparing the two styles from actual examples. 206 THE TOPE AT AMRAVATI. ‘horse? The man who kneels in front of it is in the same costume, and the whole may be parts of one story or one symbolism.* It was on the top of the Museum slab that I first perceived the holes into which the crowning metal finish was fixed. From their form and position I would have had little hesitation as to- what they were intended for, but the fact that every - ridge in the great Serpent temple c& Nakhon Vat in Cambodia was originally adorned by a metal ornament, removes at once any doubts that might exist. This inner Rail being apparently the last.