Indian Antiquary Vol 52

SR No.: 032544
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1985
Total Pages: 568
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 24 MB

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to settle within his dominions, which extended to the coast. The offer was accepted, and Mr. Day visited the Raja in his palace at Chandragiri in 1639, where in 1640 a grant was made of a small strip of land on the coast, the first ever possessed by the British in this part of India. To protect themselves against the danger of attack from their restless and lawless neighbours a fort was built and named Fort St. George, after the traditional champion of England." A curious feature of the palace is that it possesses no entrances on the south side, although this may be regarded as its front, all the entrances being on the north. In Burma the amount of outstanding conser vation work is very large, and inasmuch as some of the estimates were prepared many years ago, when the cost of building materials and local labour was much less than it is now, the completion of the various items is likely to cost double and possibly treble the sum now shown in the estimates. Most of the money available during the year under review was devoted to repairing the palace at Mandalay and the tombs of King Mindon and the Burmese Queens.
Sir John Marshall gives an interesting summary of further exploration at Taxila. Among other finds at Sirkap were a flask of green glass, the first intact specimen of a glass vessel found in North-Western India: pieces of Chinese jade which throw an interesting sidelight on the ques tion of the Far-Eastern trado with India in those early days; a hoard of copper coins of King Gondophares and other Indo-Parthian Kings; and copper ornaments, some of which afford a striking illustration of the evolution of a bird-head motif from the simple comma so familiar in the "dot and comma pattern of Scytho-Parthian art. Perhaps more interesting than these was Gandhara statuette, representing a female clad in tunic and suri, holding a lotus in her right hand.
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In the Gandhara School figures completely in the round, such as this one, are exceedingly rare, and what adds still further to its interest and value is the fact that it can be assigned with cer tainty to a date not later than the middle of the first century A.D., thus supplying us with n definite landmark-where landmarks are singu. larly few-in the early history of this School."
A deeply interesting account is given of the work so far carried out at the Bhir Mound, where three distinct strata have been exposed, the top stratum belonging to the third or fourth century B.C., the second not less than a century older than the top one, and the third likewise a hundred years. or more older than the second. In the middle and lowest strata were found beads of cornelian, agate, lapis-lazuli, crystal, pearl, coral and shell, of various shapes and designs, many of them beautifully finished, together with glass beads of good quality, which justify the belief that the
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ OCTOBER, 1923
jewellers' and lapidaries' arts and the art of glassmaking had reached a high pitch of excellence long before the third century B.C.
In Western India the chief discoveries were the old Palace of the Peshwas in Poona, to which allusion has been made in a previous review, and a fine old Chalukyan temple exhumed from below the inner wall of the fort at Sholapur. Excavations in the Ganjam District of Madras resulted in the discovery of interesting Buddhist remains, while among the remains unearthed in Burma were some stone axe-heads, which are declared to date from the close of the Pliocene or the beginning of the Pleistocene period. Epigra. phical work of importance was carried out in all Circles, among the records examined being fourteen sets of copper-plates and a lithic record of the Rashtrakuta Nripatunga Amoghavarsha I, whose son Duddayya (a name hitherto unknown) conferred a revenue settlement on twelve territorial divisions. A Vijayanagara record of the reign of Achyutaraya records a drought; which destroyed cocoanut and areca plantations, and gives details of remissions of rent fixed to lighten. the burden of the distressed cultivators; while an important inscription, discovered at the top of the Uparkot Fort in Junagadh, was examined by Mr. Banerji and found to belong to the reign of the Kshatrapa Jivadaman I. Six new inscriptions were discovered in Burma, two of which definitely refer to King Tissa, hitherto known as a legendary King of Pegu, and three epigraphs on terra cotta votive tablets were also examined, one of which, written in Burmese, shows that in the eleventh and twelfth centuries A.D. the Burmese were still using words derived, not from the Pali of Southern Buddhism, but from the Sanskrit.
The report is embellished with admirable photographs of some of the chief monuments mentioned by the Director-General, and of the relics discovered in the excavations at Taxila, Mathura, Nalanda, and in Burma. The work of the Archaeological Survey is so important and its achievements have hitherto been so creditable. that one can only hope that, even if the Indian and Provincial Governments cannot increase their grants-in-aid, wealthy Indians will come forward in increasing numbers to finance the activities of the experts who are slowly but surely bringing to light the civilization of vanished ages.
S. M. EDWARDES.
AN INDIAN EPHEMERIS, A.D. 700 to A.D. 1799, showing the daily solar and lunar reckoning according to the principal systems current in India with their English equivalents, also the ending moments of tithis and nakshatras, and the years in different eras, with a perpetual planetary almanac and other auxiliary tables, by Diwan Bahadur L. D.