Peri, Whose
Spirits Had Been Raised By The Gift Of A Whole Stick Of Sugar-Cane
From Me, Lifted Her Trunk Backwards And Playfully Blew Into Our Faces.
- - - - - -
On the threshold of the Nassik caves we bid good-bye to the modern
pigmy India, to the petty things of her everyday life, and to her
humiliations.
We re-entered the unknown world of India, the great
and the mysterious.
The main caves of Nassik are excavated in a mountain bearing the
name of Pandu-Lena, which points again to the undying, persistent,
primaeval tradition that ascribes all such buildings to the five
mythical (?) brothers of prehistoric times. The unanimous opinion
of archaeologists esteems these caves more interesting and more
important than all the caves of Elephanta and Karli put together.
And, nevertheless - is it not strange? - with the exception of the
learned Dr. Wilson, who, it may be, was a little too fond of forming
hasty opinions, no archaeologist has, as yet, made so bold as to
decide to what epoch they belong, by whom they were erected, and
which of the three chief religions of antiquity was the one professed
by their mysterious builders.
It is evident, however, that those who wrought here did not all
belong either to the same generation or to the same sect. The
first thing which strikes the attention is the roughness of the
primitive work, its huge dimensions, and the decline of the sculpture
on the solid walls, whereas the sculpture and carvings of the six
colossi which prop the chief cave on the second floor, are
magnificently preserved and very elegant. This circumstance
would lead one to think that the work was begun many centuries
before it was finished. But when? One of the Sanskrit inscriptions
of a comparatively recent epoch (on the pedestal of one of the colossi)
clearly points to 453 B.C. as the year of the building. At all
events, Barth, Stevenson, Gibson, Reeves, and some other scientists,
who being Westerns can have none of the prejudices proper to the
native Pundits, have formed this conjecture on the basis of some
astronomical data. Besides, the conjunction of the planets stated
in the inscription leaves no doubt as to the dates, it must be either
453 B.C., or 1734 of our era, or 2640 B.C., which last is impossible,
because Buddha and Buddhist monasteries are mentioned in the inscription.
I translate some of the most important sentences:
"To the most Perfect and the Highest! May this be agreeable to Him!
The son of King Kshaparata, Lord of the Kshatriya tribe and protector
of people, the Ruler of Dinik, bright as the dawn, sacrifices a
hundred thousand cows that graze on the river Banasa, together
with the river, and also the gift of gold by the builder of this
holy shelter of gods, the place of the curbing of the Brahmans'
passions. There is no more desirable place than this place, neither
in Prabhasa, where accumulate hundreds of thousands of Brahmans
repeating the sacred verse, nor in the sacred city Gaya, nor on
the steep mountain near Dashatura, nor on the Serpents' Field in
Govardhana, nor in the city Pratisraya where stands the monastery
of Buddhists, nor even in the edifice erected by Depana-kara on the
shores of the fresh water [?] sea.
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