AND RUINS AT MAVALIPURAM. I5I 



larger than the natural fize,but very well executed, each 

 hewn alfo out of one ftone. None of the pieces that 

 have fallen off in cutting thefe extraordinary fculptures, 

 are now to be found near or any where in the neigh- 

 bourhood of them, 10 that there is no means of afcer- 

 taining the degree of labour and time that has been 

 fpent upon them, nor the fize of the rock or rocks 

 from which they have been hewn, a circumftance which 

 renders their appearance the more ftrikingand Angular. 

 And though their fituation is very near the fea-beach, 

 they have not fuffered at all by the corrofive air of that 

 element, which has provided them with a defence againft 

 itfelf, by throwing up before them a high bank, that 

 completely (belters them. There is alfo great fymme- 

 try in their form ; though that of the Pagodas is dif- 

 ferent from the ftyle of architecture according to which 

 idol temples are now built in that country. The latter 

 resemble the Egyptian ; for the towers are always pyra- 

 midical, and the gates and roofs flat, and without arches; 

 but thefe fculptures approach nearer to the Gothic tafte, 

 being furmounted by arched roofs or domes, that are 

 not femicircular, but compofed of two fegments of 

 circles meeting in a point at top. It is alfo obfervable, 

 that the lion in this group of fculptures, as well as that 

 upon the ftone couch above mentioned, are perfectly 

 juft reprefentations of the true lion ; and the natives 

 there give them the name which is always underftood 

 to mean a lion in the Hindoo language, to wit, Sing : but 

 the figure which they have made to reprefent that ani- 

 mal in their idol temples for centuries pad, though it 

 bear6 the fame appellation, is a distorted monfter, totally 

 unlike the original; infomuch, that it has from hence 

 been fuppofed that the lion was not anciently known in 

 thi.scountr, ,and that Sing was a name given to a monfter 

 that exifted only in Hindoo romance. But it is plain 

 that that animal was well known to the authors of thefe 

 works, who, in manners as well as arts, feem to have 

 differed much from the modern Hindoos. 



There 



