Indian Antiquary Vol 58

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 227

NOVEMBER, 19:20]
BOOK NOTICES
219
should be acquired by Government or steps taken were made prior to the Rameswar Temple or after under the Treasure Trove Act or Ancient Monument that. The stone architecture of the Rameswar Protection Act for the purpose. My personal Temple seems to be contemporaneous with the opinion is that the piece of stone in question has Rameswar Temple and the Raja-Rani temple at been removed from high up to the bank of the tank Bhubaneswar, which is now under preservation or it has fallen down from the high bank of the under the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act. Kunda and that the Kunda and the pillar were However, when, rightly or wrongly, the Hindus have made at one time. The ignorant public, as is geen been worshipping the remains of the Stambha and in several places, have mixed up Asoka Kunda and the Kunda on the Abokastami day owing to the the Stambha of Buddhist significance with the Asok - 1 identity of the name of Asoka in the histories of the stami fair of Hindu religious importance. For me it is two different periods of Indian civilisation, the ques. lifficult to say whether the Kunda and the Stambha' tion of the proposed acquisition may be dropped.
BOOK-NOTICES. ON ALEXANDER'S TRACK TO THE INDUS. Personal respectively. Ho located and examined some
Narrative of Explorations on the North-West thirty or more Buddhist atů pas, besides numerous Frontier of India, by Sir Aurel Stein, K.C.I.E., sculptures and remains of the Buddhist period, with 98 illustrations and jape from original ideutifying many of the monuments and sites mensurveys: 91 x 6 in.; pp. xvi+173. London, tioned by Fa-haien and Heüantseng. He has, with Macmillan and Co., 1929.
the aid of a trained surveyor of the Survey of India We recently reprinted in our Supplement Sir Department, mapped a great part of the Swat river Aurel Stein's important paper on Alexander's besin and considerable tracte on the east side of tho Campaign on the Indian North-West Frontier, which Swat-Indus watershed. In addition to thus supplehad been published in The Geographical Journal
menting our knowledge from the historical, archæo. for November and December, 1927. In it were set ! logical and geographical point of view, he has forth the results of researches pursued in the course ished further light upon the othnology and languages of a nine weeks' tour during the spring of 1926 in of these alpine regions. He has, for instance, made the basin of the Swât river and adjoining tracts to important records of Torwali, # Dardic langunge the east thereof, so far as they threw light on the hitherto practically unrecorded; of Dubêr, another topography of that portion of the campaign that Dardie dialect spoken by a people dwelling in a culminated in the storming of "The Rock” (Aornos) wholly unexplored high valley of the Indus Kohiswhich had defied even Heraklos-- an episode that tân lying between Tangir and Torwâl; and of mnany had onee regarded as savouring of heroic Batochi, a Kohistani language previously unknown, legend. In the volume now under notice we have which is spoken by the small Dard community of a fascinating account of this tour of exploration 18
Batora in the upper gorges of the Indus. He made * whole, at tour that will rank as one of the most time to collect wood carvings at Branial in the prolific in results of value to scholars ever accom- Torwâl valley, illustrating in their motifs and details plished in so short a time. In the brief period at the survival to the present day of the influence of his disposal Sir Aurel Stein managed to visit sites the Greco-Buddhist art familiar to us from the und penetrnte Arens never before trodden by any Gandhåra relievos. He introduces us in the European, at all events since the days of Alexander secluded Käna valley to the quasi-medieval condi. or of his successors, who struggled for more than i tions of life still pertaining there. Useful notes two centuries to hold on to the Indian provinces of are added of timber and fruit trees found at various This empire. Be traversed the main Swât valley | altitudes and in different localities : even the flowers, from Thana in the mouth-west corner to the head here and there exposed to our view, brightens of the Torwal valley, where the Ushu and Gabrål canvas crowded with scenery that delights the eye torrents unite to form the Swat river. Crossing the by its constant beauty and its frequent grandeur-the intervening ranges and passing the secluded and pale blue violets on the slopes overlooking Kalam, the hitherto inaccessible valleys of Ghorband and Kana, red rhododendrons, white iris and edelweise in the he reached the heights of Cna and the Pir-sar ridge, Kâna valley, and the dhak (palada) or " Flame of the overlooking the defiles of the Indus to the east, Forest" (Butea frondosa) on the lower fringes of Mt. and then,' marching through the almost equally llam. The occurrence of this last-named tree in this unknown and unexplored valleys of Chakesar and ares, it may be noted, is somewhat unexpected, as Puran, appropriately completed a remarkable in Sir George Watt's monumental work the circuit by climbing to the top of the famous and holy Jehlam is suggested as the western limit of its range. Mt. Ilam, on the north-west frontier of Buner. In regard to the sites described by the great He succeeded in identifying three of the strong Buddhist pilgrim Heüan teang (whom Sir Aurel holds of the Agsakênoi named in the accounts of affectionately alludes to as his patron saint), Alexander's campaign left us by Arrian, Curtius M. Foucher's suggested identification of the Hi-lo and Diodorus, namely Bazira, Om and the rock of mountain with Mt. Nam has been definitely estaAorpor, at Bir kot, Ude.gram and the Pir-sar ridge, blished, not only by the general features recorded