Jain Stupa and Other Antiquities of Mathura

Author(s): Vincent A Smith
Publisher: Vincent A Smith

Page 18

INTRODUCTION.
The Kankali, or Jaini, mound (Tula), from or near which most of the objects delineated in the plates of this work were excavated, stands in the angle between the Agra and Gobardhan roads, close to the south-west corner of the city of Mathura, and about half a mile south of the Katra. (Frontispiece).
The name of the mound is derived from a modern temple, a mean shrine, which is occupied by an ancient carved pillar doing duty as a Hindu goddess, who has been dubbed Kankalf. This temple stands about midway between the well and the Jain Stapa which was excavated by Dr. Führer in the season 1890-91. The mound is nearly rectangular in shape and is approximately 500 feet long by 350 feet broad. It long served as a quarry for bricks. Excavations for archæological purposes have been made at various datos. General Cunningham worked at the western und in March and November 1871 ; Mr. Growse operated on the northern portion in 1875, and Dr. Burgess and Dr. Führer extended the excavations to the eastern end at different times from 1887 to 1896. Mr. Harding, a predecessor of Mr. Growse as Magistrate of Mathura, also made somo excavations. A grove of trees has recently been planted on what is left of the mound, which will probably not be further explored.
Mr. Growse and Mr. Harding discovered in or close to the Kankali niound (1) two colossal statues of Buddha, each 7 feet high, supposed to be now in the Public Library at Allahabad; (2) several mutilated statues of finer stone and superior execution ; (3) a large figure of an elephant, without its trunk, found in 1871 in a garden, with an inscription dated 39 in the reign of the Kushan King Huvishka ;? (4) a square pillar with four naked Jinas, dated in the year 9 in the reign of the Kushân King Kanishka; and (5) a considerable number of other statues and sculptures. Mr. Growse notes that the ancient figures are carved in coarse red sandstone with Palt inscriptions. The mediæval figures are executed in much finer material, and the inscriptions are in Sanskrit in characters of the eleventh century A. D.3
The objects found by Cunningham were, with the exception of one ten-armed Brahmanical figure, all Jain. They included several colossal and life-size statues, both male and female, all more or less mutilated ; many broken statues of the Jain hierarchs, several being inscribed; and at least six examples of the pillars of St Apa railings.
The inscriptions included the following:Cunningham's
Date.
Remarks Plate. XIII No. 2 ... Samvat 5
On a Jain pedestal ib. , 3 ... Do. 5 ... ...
Ditto. ib. 4 ...
Do. 9
... On a Jain pedestal (mentions name of
Kanishka). ib. 5 ...
... Mentions Kanishku. ib. 6 ... ... Samvat 20
... Ona Juin figure. ib. , 7
Do. 22 The dimonsion stated in the text second with Mr. E. W. Smith's plan (l'lato I). Cunningham (" Arabeological Reports." III, 19) gives the dimensions #8 400 feet by nonrly 300 feet.
+ Cunningham, " Archwological Reporta," Vol. III, mge 20, plate v. . Growse " Mathura," 3rd ed. (1883), pages 116-118.