I consider the judgement of Niebuhr as corroborated in the highest degree even by Mr Hunter's own description of the symbols and aspect of the three personages who compose it. Let us, however, first consider his account of the di mensions of the august visage in the front. We shall soon perceive, from its astonishing depth and breadth, that it was intended for the image of the supreme presiding deity of this hallowed retreat, and that the sculptor wished to impress us, by the superior magnitude of the bust only, with the most awful conceptions of his unrivalled pre-eminence in every other point of view. The face, in the front, measures above five feet in length, and the nose, alone, one foot and a half; the width, from the ear only to the middle of the nose, is three feet four inches; but the stupendous breadth of the whole figure, between the shoulders, expands near twenty feet. The towering pyramidal

cap

of this central head has, in front, a very large jewel; and the caps themselves of all the three are exquisitely wrought. Round the neck of the same figure is suspended a most magnificent broad collar, composed of precious stones and pearls. This face, Mr Hunter adds, has a drowsy but placid appearance, which may be supposed the exact description of that absorbed state, which, it has been before

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fore remarked, constitutes the supreme felicity of the Indian deity. The amiable attribute of the preserver Veeshnu is, doubtless, intended to be represented by the face on the right, which is arrayed in smiles, and looks enamoured on a bunch of flowers, perhaps the sacred lotos, which its left hand holds up to view. If ever, on the other hand, the dreadful attributes of the destroying god Mahadeo were accurately portrayed, are they not evident in the monstrous, distorted, and terrific, features of the remaining aspect? The eye-brows of that face are contracted into frowns, the skin of the nose is drawn upwards, and the alce nostri distended, expressing contempt and indignation. The face, too, is darkened by whiskers, which the others have not, and the tongue is violently thrust out between the teeth. The right hand of this dreadful figure grasps a large hooded snake, which it holds aloft and surveys with a stern look. The snake is about a foot in thickness; and the middle finger of the hand, which grasps it, Mr Hunter asserts to be three feet and a half in length. Another hand, which is now broken off, appears to have had a snake of the same hooded and enormous kind. If, upon future and more. accurate examination, this should be discovered to be a quadruple-faced divinity, in that case

to

to whom can it possibly point, but to BRAHME himself, the GREAT ONE, who in the Asiatic Researches is represented with four majestic aspects; as the god who not only knows, but observes, all things? If the reader will trouble himself to look into the fourth and sixth plate. of Niebuhr, he will observe two figures, de-" corated in a very conspicuous manner with the zennar, or sacred cord of three threads, which the Brahmins wear: and this circumstance, added to what has been just asserted, is a sufficient refutation of that ill-founded opinion of Mr Grose and other superficial observers, that the species of devotion, now prevailing in Hindostan, was different from that originally practised in the pagoda of Elephanta. If the head of this bust, however, should, on farther inquiry, prove to be of a quadruple form, the argument will by no means be overset; for, both in plate the fifth and in the sixth; adjoining to the elephant's head, the triple divinity is clearly seen, seated on a throne ornamented with geese, the favourite birds of Sariswatty, the wife of Brahma. The elephant's head had, most probably, the now-effaced

*See an engraving of Brahma in the Asiatic Research. vol. i. p. 243.

† Opposite pages 25 and 27.

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body

body of Ganesa affixed to it; for, thus is that body ornamented in the engraving of that deity in the Asiatic Researches, to which the reader may advert; and it was judiciously placed near the Supreme Being, since, both in that authentic volume and in Holwell,* we find that it was the peculiar office of Ganesa to present to the Deity all the oblations and all the devout addresses of mankind to their Creator. The elephant's head is the emblem of sagacity, and he is styled the god of prudence and policy. Hence even worldly business of any importance is always commenced by an ejaculation to Ganesa, and he is invoked at the beginning of most Indian books; an instance of which occurs in the Heetopades, translated by Mr Wilkins, which opens with, Reverence to Ganesa. The two majestic wholelength figures, on each side of the grand bust, are both adorned with the thread of Brahma, and are probably intended to represent the priests of that deity. M. Anquetil de Perron, I observe, calls them SUBDARS.

.

In a temple of Indian deities, who would have expected to have found AN AMAZON? Yet, farther on to the left of the said bust,

*See Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 227; and Holwell, second part, p. 142.

amidst

amidst a group of thirty uncouth statues, conspicuously projects one to whom most writers, and, among them, both Niebuhr * and Hunter, have united in giving that name; and truly she is an Amazon, if the general derivation of that word be just; for, she has no right breast at all, while the left is very large and globular. She has four arms; the right fore-arm rests upon the head of a bull, the left fore-arm hangs down; but what the hand once contained is mutilated, and cannot now be distinguished. The hand of the hinder right-arm grasps a hooded snake; the left, a round shield, regularly convex on the outside, which the statue turns towards itself. As we have exploded the idea of Semiramis having constructed these caverns, from what quarter could the idea of a figure, like this, enter the head of an Indian sculptor? Herodotus acquaints us, that there were Scythian Amazons; and, however chimerical the system may appear, I cannot but suspect that it rose from that connection, which, in very early periods,

"La figure principale de cette grouppe est une femme, qui n'a qu'une mammelle, et qui, peut-être, doit représenter une AmaP. 27.

zone."

+ Amazon is supposed to be formed from the privative & and patos, mamma, or breast; for they used to cut off the right breast of the female.