36 CUP-SHAPED AND OTHER LAPIDARIAN SCULPTURES. 



Fig. 28 would correspond very closely to Simpson's fifth type (Fig. 1 of 

 this publication). 



"The remaining shrines," he continues, "were of a much poorer type. 

 But this last class was to me much the most interesting, as suggesting a 

 possible connection between the rock-markings and Lingam worship. 

 Rough sketches of these types will be found in Plate III, which accom- 

 panies this paper (here given as Figures 29, 30, and 31). The position and 

 arrangement of these symbols and the veneration paid to them, some having 

 been quite recently decked with small offerings of flowers, left no doubt 

 that they equally with the larger and more solid shrines represented the 

 Mahadeo and Yoni. But whereas in the first-noticed and better class the 

 Mahadeo is represented by an upright stone, this other and poorer type is 

 without the upright, and is apparently a conventional rendering or sketch of 

 these symbols roughlj^ cut out on the stone, the inner circle representing 

 the Mahadeo, the outer circle the Yoni, the line or lines the gutter by which 

 the libations and offerings are drained off from this as well as from the more 

 elaborate class of Mahadeos. In the centre of the yard is a monolith 

 Mahadeo of four feet and a half in height above the ground. It has no 

 markings on it, but together with all its surroundings seems very old. The 

 priest in charge of the temple held that most of the shrines were very old, 

 and accounted for their large number by saying that the yard was the 

 burial-place of men of great sanctity, some of whom had been brought from 

 great distances for interment there, and that Mahadeos of an elaborate or 

 poor class were placed over the tombs according to the means of the 

 deceased's friends."* 



The resemblance of the sculptures represented by Figures 29, 30, and 

 31 to a class of cuttings on boulders, rocks, and megalithic monuments in 

 Europe cannot be denied; but this is a subject to which I shall revert in 

 the sequel. 



In the neighborhood of Chandeshwar the explorer noticed some temples 

 or enclosures consisting of concentric stone walls of rude construction, 

 open in one place, with the Mahadeos, represented by stone pillars, in the 

 centre. The construction of the temples, he thinks, appears of some inter- 



*Eivett-Camao: ArohEBological Notes, etc.; pp. 3, 4, 5. 



