Indian Antiquary Vol 05

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 46

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[FEBRUARY, 1876.
ARCHÆOLOGICAL NOTES. BY M. J. WALHOUSE. LATE M.C.S.
(Continued from p. 25.) No. X.-The two Kanara Colossi. cult to conjecture. There it stands, uninjured, At page 353, vol. II. of the Indian Antiquary though darkened with the monsoons of centuthere is an account by Dr. Burnoll, accompaniedries,-its calm fixed gaze directed eastward to by a drawing, of the great Jaina statue at Kår. ward the magnificent mountain-wall of the kala in South Kanara, and at page 129 an ac- Ghâts, that, mantled with forests and covered count and drawing of the still greater statue at with green domes and peaks, stretches north and Sråvana Belgola, in Maisur. As Dr. Burnell south some dozen miles distant. observes, these monolithic colossi are of truly The Buddhist and Jaina faiths have always Egyptian dimensions, and though, owing to the tended towards the production of gigantic images, inferior stone from which they are cut, unequal in but the two above referred to as well as a third point of execution, are far from wanting & certain in South Kanara of which more will be said prelofty and expressive though rigid dignity. The sently, are the largest monolithic free-standing Karkala státue stands upon a rounded rocky statues I have heard of in India, or indeed in Asia. hill some three or four hundred feet high, in The enormous statue at Bamian, in Kabul, is general appearance like a slop-basin reversed; 180 feet high, excavated in high relief on a and seen from a distance on this elevation it has mountain-side, and in the fort at Gwalior there a very remarkable aspect, towering waist-high is a Jaina statue 57 foot high, hown out of the above the crenellated wall that surrounds it, like solid rock, to which it is still attached at the a giant over the rampart of an enchanted castle. back; there are still larger in Burmah, built up The spot is shown where it was excavated and of brick and mortar. In Japan there is an ent into shape-on the western declivity of the image of Buddha 95 foet bigh, made of brass hill, and now appears as a long irregular trench plates and hollow within. The Chinese pilgrim overgrown with herbage and bushes. A con- Fah-Hian saw at To-li, the present Dardu siderable depression or hollow runs transverse- or Dhir, an image of sandalwood 94 feet high, ly between this spot and the summit of the hill; to make which the sculptor was by spiritual this is said to have been filled with earth, and power thrice transported up to the Tushita the colossus, when finished, raised on to a train heaven to observe the size and appearance of of twenty iron carts, furnished with steel wheels, Maitreya Bodhisatwa. At Bangkok, in the on each of which ten thousand propitiatory Wat Po monastery, there is a gilt metal image COCO-nuts were broken, and covered with an in- of Buddha 135 feet long; it reclines on the finity of cotton. It was then drawn by legions of right side, with the head resting on the right worshippers up an inclined plane to the platform hand. General Cunningham describes a coon the hill-top where it now stands, the transit lossal figure of Buddha from 20 to 24 feet high taking many days. However legendary, this at Mathura, t and remarks: “Stone statues is at least intelligible; but how, when arrived at of this great size are so extremely difficult to the top, where the area is small, and entirely move that they can be very rarely made;" what, occupied by the platform and enelosure, with the then, must have been the difficulty of moving sides falling steeply all round, the enormous the far more colossal Kanara statues, one to bulk, 80 tons in weight and 414 feet high, a hill-top, the other, as will be described, for was raised safely upright on its stand, is diffi- some miles over rough ground !
• Beal's Travels of Fah-Hiani, p. 19.
+ There is a bas-relief of the death of Buddhs in save No. XXVI. at Ajant, in the left siale, in which the figure of Buddha measures about 23) feet long.-ED.
Archæological Survey, vol. I. p. 239. $ The completion and setting up on the Gothenburg, in the Teutoberger Forest, of a gigantic statue of Hermann, the deliverer of Germany and destroyer of the Roman legions, 9 A.D., bas just (August 1875) been observed as an event of national importance. Like the Indian statues, it is placed on hill, and raised on a substructure to clear the tree-tope; but, though fifty feet from foot to top of head,
it is made up of pieces of besten oopper weighing together only ten and a quarter tons. Yet it has taken thirty-seven years to construct. The petty Indian rajaa probably took for less time in completing their much more ponderous statues I of solid stone. Amongst other recorded great monolithio
statues in India is a red granite image, evidently Buddhistic, at a place called Santo Madhub, in KatAk; it is half buried in the ground: the upper half visible in nine feet in length, the head from chin to top four and a half feet. The image of Somanath at Jagannath is said by Maurice to have been wronght from a single stone, seventy-five feet in height; and his marble image in Gujarat, said to have been broken