Book Title: Indian Antiquary Vol 61
Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications
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OCTOBER, 1932) THE NAT-HLAUNG TEMPLE AND ITS CODS (PAGAN, BURMA)
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But Wynad ore is capricious in distribution and intractable ; speculators did their worst; and nothing is left of the venture but ruined bungalows, a jungle-choked race-course, and tons of rusting machinery that was never set up.2 Perhaps tea-planting may yet retrieve the long record of civilization's failure. *3
Yet the Wynad abounds in relics of ancient cultures, some of them historic, such as sculptures, caves, shrines and inscriptions associated with Jainism, Buddhism (perhaps) and orthodox Hinduism ; others, e.g., dolmens, menhirs, stone circles, etc., which for want of knowledge are called 'prehistoric.' The urn-burials brought to notice by Mr. Cammiade** suggest that the Wynad was formerly more attractive and better populated than it is now. Marooned communities, such as the Chettis, imply the same. Whence came the ancient cultures ?
The probabilities are obvious on the evidence cited. The ubiquity of Malayali influence, and the depth of its penetration in this section of the Deccan Plateau are almost startling. Equally so is the failure of Kanarese culture to hold its own. Clearly the belt of bamboo jungle along the Mysore frontier is a greater obstacle to human intercourse than the peril3 of the passes to the plains. Tiger and wild elephant are minor evils; they offer no serious barrier to man's advance. But the Anopheles mosquito is quite another matter. Thousands of square miles along the fringes of the Deccan Plateau have been depopulated by the deadly malaria it convoys, and the malaria of the bamboo belt is of the deadliest kind. How long the process of extermination has been going on is not known. East of the Nilgiris it is certain that large areas have been depopulated since the eighteenth century; but in the Wynad there is little hint of any close and enduring contact with the cultures of Mysore. Probability is not proof, and the evidence has not yet been properly examined. Perhaps the key to Wynad 'pre-history' is to be found in the monuments that litter the plains of Malabar. It is a scientific tragedy that the antiquities 45 of Malabar and the Wynad have failed to interest the Archæological Survey, for 'civilization' is fast breaking them up for road metal. THE NÄT-HLAUNG TEMPLE AND ITS GODS (PAGAN, BURMA).
BY NIHAR-RANJAN RAY, M.A.
(Continued from page 179.) Of the two badly defaced images referred to above, one is most probably a representation of the Vamana or Trivikrama, and the other of the Kalki avatára of Visnu. The former (fig. 10), of which little but the stone mass with its outline remains, may be described as standing in a tribhanga pose on a pedestal which is undoubtedly the remains of a full-blown lotus flower. The right leg is bent almost at right angles at the knee-joint, and the left is placed firmly on the ground. The god seems to have only two hands, of which the right holds the kamandalu and a staff-like object on which the god seems to lean. Neither the attribute in the left hand nor the hand itself can be distinguished. The dress seems to have consisted of a loin-cloth and a waist-girdle, the knot of which is noticeable on the side of the left hip. But the attribute that gives the clue to the identification of the image as Vamana or Trivikrama is the kamandalu referred to above, and the tuft of hair tied up in a knot that is seen on the head. For, the canons (e.g., the Vaikhanaadgama) would lay down that a Trivikrama image should be represented as having two arms," one of which should carry a kamandalu, and the other an umbrella. On the crown of the head there should be a tuft of hair tied
13 Nilgiri Gazetteer, pp. 13-18.
43 Even in the planting industry the separateness of the N. and S. Wynad Beserts itself. The coffee planters had two headquarters, at Manantoddy for the north, and at Vayattiri for the south; the too planters have two centres, at Manantoddy and, for the south, Meppadi.
4. See Man, 1930, No. 135, and the sites marked (1), (2), (3) and (4) in fig. 3. 16 See the long catalogue in Sewell's Lists of Antiquities, 1, 241-253.
