CHAP. 8. perfection. It has been remarked, too, that one of BOOK II. the earliest propensities which springs up in the breast of a savage is a love of ornaments, of glittering trinkets, of bits of shining metals, or coloured stones, with which to decorate his person. The art, accordingly, of fetching out the brilliancy of the precious stones and metals, and fashioning them into ornaments for the person; the art, in fine, of jewellery, appears at an early period in the progress of a rude people. These three, architecture, weaving, and jewellery, are the only arts for which the Hindus have been celebrated; and even these, with the exception of weaving, remained in a low state of improvement. 66 In a few places in Hindustan are found the remains of ancient buildings, which have attracted the attention of Europeans; and have, where there existed a predisposition to wonder and admire, been regarded as proofs of a high civilization. The entry," says Dr. Robertson," to the Pagoda of Chillambrum, is by a stately gate under a pyramid 122 feet in height, built with large stones above forty feet long, and more than five feet square, and all covered with plates of copper, adorned with an immense variety of figures neatly executed. The whole structure extends 1332 feet in one direction, and 936 in another. Some of the ornamental parts are finished with an elegance entitled to the admiration of the most ingenious artists." The only article of precise information which we obtain from this passage is the great size of the building. As for the vague terms 1 Robertson's Histor. Disquis. concerning India, p. 225. CHAP. 8. BOOK II. of general eulogy, bestowed upon the ornaments, they are almost entirely without significance—the loose and exaggerated expressions, at second-hand, of the surprise of the early travellers at meeting with an object, which they were not prepared to expect. Another structure still more remarkable than that of Chillambrum, the Pagoda of Seringham, situated in an island of the river Cavery, is thus described by Mr. Orme. "It is composed of seven square enclosures, one within the other, the walls of which are twenty-five feet high, and four thick. These enclosures are 350 feet distant from one another, and each has four large gates with a high tower; which are placed, one in the middle of each side of the enclosure, and opposite to the four cardinal points. The outward wall is near four miles in circumference, and its gateway to the south is ornamented with pillars, several of which are single stones thirty-three feet long, and nearly five in diameter; and those which form the roof are still larger; in the inmost enclosures are the chapels." In this nothing is described as worthy of regard except the magnitude of the di mensions. 1 The cave of Elephanta, not far from Bombay, is another work which, from its magnitude, has given birth to the supposition of high civilization among the Hindus. It is a cavity in the side of a mountain, about half-way between its base and summit, of the space of nearly 120 feet square. Pieces of the rock, as is usual in mining, have been left at certain distances supporting the superincumbent matter; and the sight of the whole upon the entrance, is grand 1 Orme's Hist. of Milit. Transac. of Indostan, i. 178. CHAP. 8. and striking. It had been applied at an early period BOOK II. to religious purposes, when the pillars were probably fashioned into the sort of regular form they now present, and the figures, with which great part of the inside is covered, were sculptured on the stone.1 The cave of Elephanta is not the only subterranean temple of the Hindus, exhibiting on a large scale the effects of human labour. In the isle of Salsette, in the same vicinity, is a pagoda of a similar kind, and but little inferior to it in any remarkable circumstance. The pagodas of Ellora, about eighteen miles from Aurungabad, are not of the size of those of Elephanta and Salsette, but they surprise by their number, and by the idea of the labour which they cost. See a minute description of them by Anquetil Duperron, Zendavesta, Disc. Prélim. p. ccxxxiii. The seven pagodas, as they are called at Mavalipuram, near Sadras, on the Coromandel coast, is another work of the same description; and several others might be mentioned. Dr. Tennant, who has risen higher above travellers' prejudices in regard to the Hindus, than most of his countrymen, says, "Their caves in Elephanta and Salsette are standing monuments of the original gloomy state of their superstition, and the imperfection of their arts, particularly that of architecture." Indian Recreations, i. 6. The extraordinary cavern, the temple of Pusa, near Chas-chou-fou, in China, which was visited by Lord Macartney, and full of living priests, vies in wonderful circumstances with the cave of Elephanta. See Barrow's Life of Lord Macartney, Journal, ii. 374. "However these gigantic statues, and others of similar form, in the caves of Ellora and Salsette may astonish a common observer, the man of taste looks in vain for proportion of form, and expression of countenance." Forbes' Oriental Memoirs, i. 423. "I must not omit the striking resemblance between these excavations (Elephanta, &c.) and the sculptured grottoes in Egypt," &c. "I have often been struck with the idea that there may be some affinity between the written mountains in Arabia, and the excavated mountains in Hindustan." Ibid. i. 448, 449. It is difficult to say how much of the wonderful in these excavations may be the mere work of nature: "Left Sullo, and travelled through a country beautiful beyond imagination, with all possible diversities of rock; sometimes towering up like ruined castles, spires, pyramids, &c. We passed one place so like a ruined Gothic abbey, that we halted a little, before we could satisfy ourselves that the niches, windows, ruined staircase, &c. were all natural rock. A faithful description of this place would certainly be deemed a fiction." Mungo Park's last Mission to Africa, p. 75. "Between the city of Canton, and first pagoda, on the bank of the river, is a series," says Mr. Barrow, "of stone-quarries, which appear not to have been worked for many years. The regular and formal manner in which the stones have been cut away, exhibiting lengthened streets of houses with quadrangular chambers, in the sides of which are square holes BOOK II. Antecedently to the dawn of taste, it is by magnitude alone that, in building, nations can exhibit magnificence, and it is almost uniformly in honour of the gods, that this species of grandeur is first attempted. Experience alone could have made us comprehend, at how low a stage in the progress of the arts, surprising structures can be erected. The Mexicans were even ignorant of iron. They were unacquainted with the use of scaffolds and cranes. They had no beasts of burden. They were without sledges and carts. They were under the necessity of breaking their stones with flints, and polished them by rubbing one against another. Yet they accomplished works, which, in magnitude and symmetry, vie with any thing of which Hindustan has to boast. "The great temple," says Clavigero, occupied the centre of the city. Within the enclosure of the wall, which encompassed it in a square form, the conqueror Cortez affirms that a town of 500 houses might have stood. The wall, built of stone and lime, was 66 at equal distances, as if intended for the reception of beams; the smoothness and perfect perpendicularity of the sides, and the number of detached pillars that are scattered over the plain, would justify a similar mistake to that of Mr. Addison's doctor of one of the German universities, whom he found at Chateau d'Un in France, carefully measuring the free-stone quarries at that place, which he conceived to be the venerable remains of vast palaces of great antiquity." Barrow's Travels in China, p. 599. The conclusions of many of our countrymen in Hindustan will bear comparison with that of the German doctor in France. It is not a bad idea of Forster, the German commentator upon the travels of P. Paolino, that the forming caverns into temples must naturally have been the practice when men as yet had their principal abodes in caverns. Voyage aux Indes Orien. par le P. Paolino, iii. 115. Volney says, "those labyrinths, temples, and pyramids, by their huge and heavy structure, attest much less the genius of a nation, opulent and friendly to the arts, than the servitude of a people, who were slaves to the caprice of their monarch." Travels in Egypt, &c. i. 282. CHAP. 8. very thick, eight feet high, crowned with battlements BOOK II. in the form of niches, and ornamented with many stone figures in the shape of serpents. It had four gates to the four cardinal points. Over each of the four gates was an arsenal, filled with a vast quantity of offensive and defensive weapons, where the troops went, when it was necessary, to be supplied with arms. The space within the walls was curiously paved with such smooth and polished stones that the horses of the Spaniards could not move upon them without slipping and tumbling down. In the middle was raised an immense solid building of greater length than breadth, covered with square equal pieces of pavement. The building consisted of five bodies, nearly equal in height, but different in length and breadth; the highest being narrowest. The first body, or basis of the building, was more than fifty perches long from east to west, and about forty-three in breadth from north to south. The second body was about a perch less in length and breadth than the first; and the rest in proportion. The stairs, which were upon the south side, were made of large well-formed stones, and consisted of 114 steps, each a foot high. Upon the fifth body (the top) was a plain, which we shall call the upper area, which was about forty-three perches long, and thirty-four broad, and was as well paved as the great area below. At the eastern extremity of this plain were raised two towers, to the height of fifty-six feet. These were properly the sanctuaries, where, upon an altar of stone, five feet high, were placed the tutelary idols."1 The Tlascalans, as a rampart against the Mexican Clavigero, Hist. of Mexico, book vi. sect. 10. |