Indian Antiquary Vol 51

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 87

APRIL, 1922)
MISCELLANEA
79
only be alluded to in Manu 86 and Yajñavalkya86, but also in an inscription 87. It is thus that the Hindu codes of law lay down elaborate rules for settlement of disputes concerning boundaries of villages 88. The term bhúmicchidranyaya might refer to these laws and particularly to .wanu, VIII, 255, where the king is enjoined to put down in black and white the boundary limite settled in the presence of witnesses.89 In the inscriptions all the assembled officials are the witnesses as well as the inhabitants of the villages concerned. The expression matam-astu bhavatám or astu vah samviditam signifies consent to the settlement.
Bhumicchidranyciyena may also be rendered into : “ according to the laws or customs pertaining to villages including the cultivable areas as well as other kinds of land, namely, uncultivable tracts" (ohúmi meaning village and cultivable tracts, and chidia uncultivable areas).
MISCELLANEA. ORIGIN OF THE SWELLING DOME. ! it is that they never bear the mark of their
supposed Indian origin in the form of an inverted SIR,
lotus finial; and (d) if the inverted lotus finial is As you were kind enough to publish my
not a very late invention, as I believe, why is it memoir on The History and Evolution of the Dome
never found on Indian domes until the middle of in Pernia in the Indian Antiquary in 1915
the sixteenth century ? - (Vol. XLIV. pp. 133 f.), may I be gran tud some of!
I will now refer to the carvings alleged by your valuable space to answer an objection to one
Mr. Havell to represent domes. The stupa is of the theories put forth therein, an objection
admitted by Mr. Havell to have been a solid which has buen raised by Mr. Havell in his Hand
dome-shaped mound and not a structural dome. book of Indian Art.
We have a good example at Sånchi of en As your readers may remember, I derived the i
8pcient stupa, the oldest in India, with its double slightly swelling Persian dome from the
encircling palisade and gates. At Kärlê (1st cen wooden dome of the Great Mosque at Damasous, tury B.C.), Beds, and Bhaja (his plates IXA, Lu a dome probably built in the 12th century A.D.
and Ib respectively) we have the next stage, a (not in the 8th as Mr. Havell says), The double
model of a stupa in which the encircling palisade har dom, first appears after this in two buildings
beon, so to speak, shrunk on to the stupa itaelf by orected at Samarkand by Timur on his return artistio licence, for the sake of compactness. Mr. from the sack of Damascus in 1401, viz., the Havell himself says, when speaking of the model at mausoleum of his wife Bibi Khamuín and his own Bhaja- here the rail enclosing the processional mausoleum known as the Gur Amir. This type of path is only carved as an ornamental band " (p. 22) dome is next geen in the mosque built at Meshed In these models the stupa is placed on a high by Gauhar Shad, the wife of Shah Rukh, in 1418, cylindrical drum. But there is a third and later in the Blue Mosque built by her nephew Jahan stage-the model stupas in stupa homes No. 19 Shah at Tabriz between 1437 and 1468, and in the (2nd-- 5th century) and No. 26 (7th century or Múmulla at Herat, built between 1487-1606. This
later) at Ajanta. In these the Buddha is repre. type of dome is not known in India until the
sented as standing in the gateway of the palisade Hecond half of the 16th century, and it is not
and in front of the stupa. Mr. Havell would have accompanied by an inverted lotus finial until å
it that the Buddha is meant to be, under the dome centary later. If Mr. Havell's theory of its Indian
of the stupa, although hitherto this has alwaye origin is to be accepted, will be explain (a) how been a solid structure and not a structural dome. it is that early Muhammadan domes in India,
My interpretation, however, receives decisive although so many have survived, and although
support from an examination of the model stupe built, according to him, in the true country of the in stupa house No. XXVI, where the gateway and double dome, and by Indian masons, are never the Buddha are clearly in front of the stupa (Mr. found constructed in this way; (b) how it is that Havell's plate XIb). Incidentally I would call they are found in Persia and Central Asia, one attention to the fact that neither of these supposed and a half centuries earlier than in India ; (c) how domes have the inverted lotus finial.
85 Manu, VIII, 249 : upacchanndni cânydni simålingdni Idrayet simaj dne norindon okya nityam loke viparyayam.
$ 11, 153: simno viodde kyetraaya admanidh athavirddayah gopd simikrisna ye sarve ca vanagocardk. 87 Kamauli inscription, line 59, (vivddabhumerudyardham). 88 Mann, VIII, 246-265; Y djavolleya, II, 163-161; Arthaldistra, 168.
80 te pridatu yatha bruyub sama tdk mos niscayam nibadhinydeath amdm grudmaldindcaina namalah. Says Kuljica: te priedh adik ipak samostd na doaidhena afmdoisayo yena prakdrena nidcitam br. yw tena prakarena viomarandrtham patre imam lihat iam ce sarvaneva adino ndmavibhagalo likhei.