Indian Art and Letters

Author(s): India Society
Publisher: India Society

Page 64

Pra Vihān (Vihara) of you, going up the hillside, an imposing staircase consisting of 160 broad stone steps, each a foot in height and at least 30 feet wide (Pl. I.). You can just see the ruins of some kind of building on the top, but it is too far away to discern with any certainty what is before you. In some places the natural rock has been cut to take the place of a step, but by far the greater part of this staircase is composed of great slabs of sandstone cut out of the hills near by.
When you have arrived at the end of your toilsome climb, you see before you another short stairway with a balustrade on either side, down which come two magnificent guardian “Nagas " rearing their heads 10 feet into the air (Pl. II.). On the top of the stairway is a "gopura," or gateway, in reality a small temple in itself, but now almost a complete ruin, formed of solid sandstone blocks and monoliths (Pls. III. and IV.). Passing through, you continue your pilgrimage up a long, paved causeway until you reach another short Aight of steps, and, crowning them, another "gopura," or gateway, rather larger than the first one, but constructed in much the same form (Pl. V.) On your left, as you climb up, you pass the bathing pool, now a delightfully shady spot, with overhanging trees and tiers of sandstone steps, cut out of the rock all round, leading down to the empty bath On the right-hand side, at a short distance from the causeway, there is a raised road which seems to have been specially built for hauling up the blocks of stone, and one can see clearly many places at hand where the stone was quarried. We actually found marks of the instruments used on the face of the hewn rock. Looking back at the second gateway you see a beautifully carved lintel over the door (Pl. VI.).
Passing through the second gateway you continue to climb, as in the fairy-tale, up another long causeway, now an avenue of trees, lined on either side with stone ornaments somewhat in the shape of a "lingam,” but probably with no such significance, until you reach a third short fight of steps, and on the top, not this time a gateway, but a large rectangular temple with two subsidiary buildings containing long galleries, one on either side of the main
(Pls. VII. and VIII.). At the left of the steps there is a "tāt," or "stupa," in fairly good preservation, evidently a memorial to some long dead warrior or king Passing through the central building you come to another short fight of steps with broken Nagas on either side, and near by the bases (all that is now left) of two smallish buildings, also one on either side. Then on you go again up the third causeway, and finally you climb a short stairway and reach the gateway, in “gopura" form, of the last and greatest temple on the summit of the hill (Pl. IX.). Keeping outside to the right of this temple, you pass behind it and, crossing the intervening space of about 40 yards, you come to a rocky prominence, from the edge of which you see the whole panorama of the country stretched out before you, and at your 132