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198
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[SEPTEMBER, 1905.
entrance there are still doop bolos in the floor into which the posts wero fitted that supported the curtuin by which the cold was shut out, and inside there was room enough for a festive nach party."
Now this seems a somewhat extensive deduction to draw from the first line of an inscription and the ascent to this cave. Mr. Beglar's plan (Aroh. Sur. Ind. Rep. Vol. XIII. pl. x.) and Mr. Ball's sketch of the approach shew the vaulted entry about 14 feet deep opening to ten or twelve yards wide nt the front, with stairs up at the sides and semi-circular steps or benches between; but the rock appears naturally to shelve away rather rapidly for placing & stage below; and inside the "raum genug für eine solenne 'nautch party'" is scarcely five feet between the wall and a bench 2 feet high and would be cramped for any dance movement. We surely require more satisfactory evidence before we conclude that this approach was constructed as a Greek theatre for dramatic represeutations even on a small scale. Had this been so, we should naturally oxpect that such would be found not only in this solitary instance in remote Sargūja, but that other and better examples would certainly occur among the hundreds of rock excavations still fairly complete in Western India. Yet no trace of such bas been found elsewhere.
Bnt, much of the force of the dedaction must depend on the accuracy of the reading of the inscription, which in May 1904 was read differently by A.-M. Boyer' 18
adipayanti hadayas sa[dha] va garaka[ue] vayo eli tayan .. .. dule vasantiya
hi sävänübhate kudas alai eparh alanga[ta). This would give a different sense, but the trae reading will depend on the impressions or photographs of the epigraplas. M. Boyer's transcription of the Jogimārā inscription runs
Sutan uka nimi d-va lasikyi tar kamayitha ba lu na seye
Decadine nama lupadakhe and makes Devadi[n]na an "artist of stataes," and "excellent among young people," and a lover of "Sutanukā the devadasi."
That some of the early caves may have been used for amusements is quite probable. In one of the Aurangābād Bauddha caves we have a nach represented in the very shrine (Arch. Suro. Wesin. India, Vol. III. pl. lis. fig. 5); and it may readily bave occurred to modern visitors that such caves an Nos. 3 and 15 at Näsik, the Uparkot cave at Junagadh, and others at Kuda, Mahād, &c., with seats round three sides of them, might have been so arranged with - view to theatrical representations. But these were not in the open air, like Greek thetres.
And here I may incidentally remark that it seems as if we sometimes forget, that all the numerous Vihāras (literally pleasure houses') may not have been occupied by monks. There must have been convents for the nuns, - possibly some of them rich in wall frescoes, such as we Leo the remains of at Ajanță, in which nächnis and lenakoskikäs are not excluded. Something
1 Jour, Asiatique, Xidme Sdr. tom. III. PP. 478 ff.
* Conf. Care Tomy les p'atos iv. ; v. 1; xix.. VI., &c.; Arch. Surv. Worth. Ind. Vol. IV. plates vii, to 1. May there not be some signifionnos in the figure attending the Caguba in the Gautamiputra Civo (No. IIT.) at Nasik, being femalm, as also on the Jains noulpture of a cagaba from Mathura discovered by the late Pandit Bhagwan.nl Indraji P
Since the above was written Dr. Lüders has directed my attention to a reviow of Mr. V. A. Smith'. 'Early History of India,' by Professor Pisobel in the Deuterhe Literaturzeitung (4 März, 1005, 540 1.), where, after express ing serious doubt m to the alleged Greek influence on the Indian Drama, he brings to notice a passage in the Bharatiyanālynfästra (11.30 f. and li. 60, Bombay ed., or ii. 17 1. and ii, 81, d. Grasset) which both Blouh and Lidors have overlooked
karyaḥ sailag ha'āro doibhūmir natyam rapal, wth hloh leo the Dalakumaracharita (p. 108, 14, Bomb. ed. 1889, or p. 10,23 La Peterson's ed.) groo
