Lieut. Alexander's Visit to the Cavern Temples of Adjtmta. 365 



fifty feet from the stream. The most remote one is near a bluff rock of two 

 hundred feet of elevation, over whose brow a cascade dashes during the 

 rains, though in the dry season the face of the cliff glistens with only a 

 scanty rill. 



The first circumstance that strikes an attentive observer of these magnifi- 

 cent remains of antiquity and wonders of art, who has previously visited the 

 mythological or pantheistical excavations of Ellora, is the great want of 

 ornamental and minute sculpture in the former, compared with the exquisite 

 and elaborate finishing of the latter. The general appearance of the Ad- 

 junta caves is similar to that of the caves of Ellora ; that is, they are mostly 

 low, with a flat roof supported by massive pillars having cushioned capitals ; 

 but there is a great deficiency in ornamental carving and fret-work. Some, 

 however, are exceptions to this remark. In most of the caves, to compensate 

 for the want of profuse entaille and sculptures, are paintings in fresco, 

 much more interesting, as exhibiting the dresses, habits of life, pursuits, 

 general appearance, and even features of the natives of India, perhaps, two 

 tliousand or two thousand five hundred years ago, well preserved and highly 

 coloured, and exhibiting in glowing tints, of which light red is the most com- 

 mon, the crisp-haired aborigines of the sect of Buddhists, who were driven 

 from India to Ceylon after the introduction of Brahminism. 



Before proceeding farther with our description, let us endeavour to inquire 

 into the antiquity of these excavations. It has generally been observed, in 

 tracing the history of any religion, that elaborate and complicated systems of 

 sacred rites and modes of addressing the Supreme Being are commonly 

 posterior to more simple forms and rituals. This I should imagine applies 

 to Buddhism ; for not only in their rites, but also in their places of worship, 

 the Buddhists display a system which appears to be much more crude and 

 simple than that which now predominates over the greater part of the Indian 

 continent. Reasoning from the above premises, it may be confidently affirm- 

 ed that Buddhism is greatly anterior to Brahminism. The Buddhists adore 

 one deity (some peculiarities in whose personification in these caves shall be 

 hereafter noticed); they are monotheists, and their religion is exoteric; 

 while the gods of the present race of Hindus are uncountable. Some spe- 

 culators in Hindu mythology maintain that the chief temple in all Jain* 



• The Jains and Buddhists only differed in regard to the history of the personages whom 

 they deified : hotli sects reject the Vcdas, or sacred books of the Hindus ; worship one Deity, 



Vol. II. 3 B 



