after ascending a flight of two hundred steps cut out
of the rock, we reached the platform. Here a Rajah
had encamped under a large crimson tent, having
made the pilgrimage of several hundred miles in the
hope of thereby saving his soul from reappearing after
death in the body of an unclean animal. From this
spot I had a splendid view upon the bay and the coast
line, but the broiling sun soon drove me to seek shelter
within the caves, cut out of the living rock. They
are elaborately sculptured at the cost of an incredible
amount of manual labour, and consist of several
chambers, the largest of which is about 130 feet
square, and eighteen feet high, supported by twenty-
five (now partly broken) columns. There is a curious
representation of the Hindu Trinity in the centre, a
large bust of the three-formed God as Creator, Preserver
and Destroyer. On each side of this hall
there is another compartment, the walls of which are
covered with a variety of many-armed figures or
deities and their attributes, frequently in the form of
monsters, whilst at the upper end of one of the
inner walls there is, by way of contrast, a rather
skilful and elegantly designed piece of sculpture in the
shape of two cherub heads it la Raphael, and on the
•ceiling that of two figures apparently floating in the
.air, not unlike, in idea, Thorwaldsen’s “ Night and
Day ” in the museum, bearing his name at Copenhagen,—
Strange but tru e ! There are also two smaller
caves similarly ornamented, and one of them containing
a gigantic Lingam, or symbol of Mahadeva, the
fructifying deity. A representation of the “Lingam”
as well as that of his sister “ Yoni ” one frequently
meets with all over India, more especially in the
villages of the Deccan, where superstition carries people
into all sorts of excesses. A curious instance of a
small stone Lingam set in the Yoni is recorded by Dr.
Bellew in his “ Kashmir and Kashgar.” He saw it,
anointed with oil and garlanded with flowers, on the
altar of an old Hindu temple at Uri, not far from
Srinagar.
I t is to be regretted that there is no trace by which
to determine the exact period at which this enormous
work—the Temple of Elephanta—has been executed,
but no doubt it is a faithful representation of Hindu
mythology, as it exists to this day. Sir George Bird-
wood’s “ Industrial Art of India ” names the eighth
century ; but I am inclined to think that it dates from
the earlier persecutions of Brahmanism by the Buddhists,
which the character of its sculpture, as compared
with that of the Kylas, described hereafter, seems to
confirm.
The Brahminical religion receives its name from