180 ON THE CAVE TEMPLES OF INDIA, 



settlers on the Upper Nile. The temples of Nubia, for example, 

 exhibit the same features, whether as to style of architecture or 

 the form of worship to which they were devoted, with the similar 

 buildings which have recently been examined in the neighbour- 

 hood of Bombay. 



In both cases they consist of vast excavations hewn out in the 

 solid body of a hill or mountain, and are decorated with huge 

 figures which indicate the same powers of nature, or serve as 

 emblems to denote the same qualities in the ruling spirits of the 

 universe. As a further proof of this hypothesis, we are informed 

 that the Sepoys who joined the British army in Egypt, under 

 Lord Hutchinson, imagined that they found their own temples in 

 the ruin of Dendera, and were greatly exasperated at the natives 

 for their neglect of the ancient deities whose images are still pre- 

 served. So strongly indeed were they impressed with this 

 identity, that they proceeded to perform their devotions with all 

 the ceremonies practiced in their land. There is a resemblance, 

 too, in the minor instruments of their superstition the lotus, the 

 lingam, and the serpent which can hardly be regarded as acci- 

 dental ; but it is no doubt in the immense extent, the gigantic 

 plan, the vast conception which appears in all their sacred 

 buildings, that we most readily discover the influence of the same 

 lofty genius, and the endeavour to accomplish the same mighty 

 object. The excavated temples of Guerfeh Hassan, for instance, 

 remind every traveller of the cave of Elephanta. The resem- 

 blance, indeed, is singularly striking, as are, in fact, all the 

 leading principles of Egyptian architecture, and that of the 

 Hindoos. By whom and by what means these wonderful efforts 

 have been accomplished is a mystery sunk too deep in the abyss 

 of time ever to be revealed. 



Mr. Fergusson, who has devoted more time to their investi- 

 gation than most travellers or antiquarians, with the exception of 

 Mr. Prinsep and Dr. Bird, has arrived at the following conclusions 

 with regard to the antiquity of the monuments ; that the oldest 

 relics of whose existence he is aware are the Laths, bearing inscrip- 

 tions of Asoka, dating from the middle of the third century B.C., 

 and that he is not aware of the existence of any cave anterior to, 

 or even coeval with these, nor of any structural building whose 



