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THE CAVE OF ELEPHANTA 



Is situate in a beautiful island in the Bay of Bombay; it is called by 

 the natives, Goripura, or Mountain City; its common name of Elephanta 

 is derived from a colossal figure of an elephant, cut out of a detached 

 mass of blackish rock, unconnected with any stratum below ; this figure 

 has had another om its back, which has been sometimes called a young 

 elephant, but there can be no reasonable doubt, from a close inspection 

 of what remains, that it was a tiger. The head and neck of the elephant 

 separated from the body in 1814 ; the length of this colossal figure is, 

 from the forehead to the tail, 13 feet 2 inches, and the height is 7 feet 4 

 inches; this figure stands about 250 yards from the landing place, on the 

 south of the island. After proceeding up a valley till the two mountains 

 unite, there is a narrow path, ascending which you have a beautiful view 

 of the island, and of the opposite shores of Salvette. " Advancing 

 forward," says Mr. W. Erskine, " and keeping to the left along the bend 

 of the hill, we gradually mount to an open space and come suddenly on 

 the grand entrance of a magnificent temple, whose huge massy columns 

 seem to give support to the whole mountain which rises above it. The 

 entrance into this temple, which is entirely hewn out of a stone resem- 

 blingporphyry,isbyaspaciousfrontsupportedbytwomassypillarsandtwo 

 pilasters, forming three openings under a thick and steep rock, overhung 

 by brushwood and wild shrubs. The long ranges of columns that appear 

 closing in perspective on every side ; the flat roof of solid rock that 

 seems to be prevented from falling only by the massy pillars, whose 

 capitals are pressed down and flattened, as if J>y the superincumbent 

 weight; the darkness which obscures the interior of the temple, which is 

 dimly lighted by the entrances, and the gloomy appearance of the 

 gigantic stone figures ranged along the wall, and hewn like the whole 

 temple out of the living rock; joined to the strange uncertainty that 

 hangs over the history of this place, carry the mind back to distant 

 periods, and impress it with a kind of uncertain and religious awe, with 

 which the grander works of ages of darkness are generally contemplated. 

 The whole excavation consists of three principal parts; the great temple 

 itself, which is in the centre, and two smaller chapels, one on each side 

 of the great temple. These two chapels do not come forward into a 

 straight line with the front of the chief temple, are not perceived on 



