488 Capl. GniNDLAY 07i the Sculptures in the Cave I'ernples of Ellora. 



Olympus, and the no less incongruous compositions of even the Augustan 

 age of Italian art. Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Guido, did violence to 

 their own taste and judgment, when, in obedience to the commands of 

 their patrons, they represented miracles and legendary tales, which set 

 nature and common sense alike at defiance. 



A state of tranquillity and relative liberty appears at all times to have 

 been flivourable to the cultivation and perfection of arts and sciences. The 

 acknowledged supei-iority of the sculpture in the cave temples of Ellora, 

 and the obscurity which has hitherto enveloped the history of those stu- 

 pendous and magnificent monuments of labour and ingenuity, may therefore 

 equally afford a rational ground for ascribing to them a very remote antiquity ; 

 because, from their magnitude and extent, as well as from their elaborate 

 perfection, they are more likely to have been the production of a powerful 

 and refined people in a state of peace and prosperity, than a place of 

 refuge of a proscribed and persecuted sect. 



The architectural character of these excavations affords a powerful corrobo- 

 ration of this hypothesis ; for they are evidently not the rude and early effort 

 of a people emerging from a state of barbarism, but imitations of a style of 

 building matured and refined by ages of practice and experience. 



The superior execution observable in the remains of sculpture and archi- 

 tecture throughout India appears to be in proportion to their antiquity : 

 the more rude, though not less stupendous excavations at Karli near 

 Poonah, in the islands of Salsette and Elephanta, and in other parts of the 

 coast, bear a similar relation to their respective distances from the seat of 

 government, and, consequently, from the source of art and refinement which 

 was to be found alone in the interior. In the plate No. 5, now presented to 

 the Society, the upper compartment represents Maha Deva and his consort 

 Parvati playing at shatrinji or chess, surrounded by their attendants ; whilst 

 a djjte, or evil spirit (of discord), is sitting by, exciting the divinities to a 

 dispute which terminated in a fatal quarrel and separation. The inhabitants 

 of the Hindu Olympus, alarmed at the terrible consequences of this feud, 

 implored the intercession of Brahma, who called in the aid of Kama Deva the 

 god of love. 



This divinity, who is usually represented as a beautiful youth armed with 

 a bow of sugai'-cane, or flowers, with a string of bees, attempts to touch the 

 heart of Maha Deva with one of his arrows tipped with a flower of a stimu- 

 lant property : the enraged deity reduces the audacious boy to ashes, with a 



