122 Sculpture from PatJidri. [Mat, 



Capt. Wateehotjse replied that the want of sharpness was not par- 

 ticularly referred to by M. Janssen in his note, unless it was part of the 

 very phenomenon described by him. as occurring in the intervals between 

 the figures of the photographic net-work. He had seen it stated in some of 

 the English journals, that the want of sharpness was not due to any defect 

 of focus or photographing, but was actually the representation of solar 

 phenomena. 



Capt. WATEEHorsE said that his attention had been drawn by General 

 Gowan to a photograph of a sculptured group in the Garalmandal Temple 

 at Pathari, near Saugor, in Central India, taken by himself in the year 

 1862, with reference to a translation by Miss Tweedie of a paper by Prof. 

 Weber on the Krishna-janmashtami or Krishna's birth-festival, published 

 in the ' Indian Antiquary' for December 1877. 



The piece of sculpture, of which he exhibited a photograph to the 

 meeting, represented a female figure nearly the size of life lying down on 

 a couch, with the left hand partly supporting her head and a little child 

 lyino- by her side. Behind the couch there are five smaller female figures, 

 standino- apparently in attendance. Some of these hold chauris and one 

 holds a sort of bag or purse. The couch is covered with a flowered cloth, 

 and has embroidered cushions. It is supported on carved legs by two 

 couchant lions and a seated human figure. The face and other parts of the 

 principal figure have unfortunately been very much damaged. 



From the nimbus round the head of the recumbent female figure, she 

 is evidently a person of sanctity, but whether the sculpture is intended to 

 represent Devaki with the infant Krishna, or Maya with the infant Buddha, 

 it was difficult for him to say, though he had always taken it to be the latter. 

 Capt. J. D. Cunningham, who described the ruins of Pathari in the 

 Society's Journal, No, 189, for April 1848, says, that tradition declares the 

 figure to be that of the Garerun who built the temple, and adds that the 

 shepherd missing his wife one day, was told that her heart's desire had 

 been accomplished ; a copious spring had overflowed and formed a lake 

 close to her temple, and that she herself having done with the world, had 

 been metamorphosed into stone, and had become the guardian of- the fane 

 of her own erection. 



The only point of interest in the sculpture, is the beauty and artistic 

 grace it possesses, and the fact that the child is represented as lying quietly 

 by the side of its mother, with its hands up, while in most of the instances 

 quoted by Prof. Weber in the paper referred to by General Gowan, the 

 infant Krishna is represented as at the breast of his mother. 



Capt. Waterhouse said, he was not competent to offer an opinion on 

 the subject himself, but General Gowan had thought it might be of interest 



