1878.] SculiHure from FatMri. 123 



to the Society. An outline sketcli would be published in the Proceedings, 

 (see Plate III) . Unfortunately the original negative from which the photo- 

 graph was printed, was in England, and many details are wanting in the 

 only copy that remained, owing to the fact that half the sculpture was in 

 very strong shadow inside the temple. 



ADDENDrM ; — Since the meeting I have shown the sketch to Dr. Eajen- 

 dralala Mitra who has kindly favoured me with the following information. 



J. W. 



" According to the Harivansa and other leading Hindu authorities 

 Krishna was born when his parents were in prison. The birth took place in 

 a dark rainy night when the warders had fallen asleep, and the father, to 

 save his new-born babe from the doom which awaited it at the hands of 

 Eaja Kaiisa, the Indian Herod, secretly carried it away, crossed the Yamuna 

 on foot, and finding Yasoda, a cowherdess, asleep by the side of her little 

 daughter born an hour or two before, quietly left his son by her side, and 

 carried the baby to the prison. 



If we accept the picture to be a representation of the birth of Krishna 

 we must assume the scene to be either of the prison cell, or of the dwelling of 

 the cowherdess, and in neither place would the attendants be consistent. I 

 am disposed, therefore, to believe that it is intended for the birth of Buddha. 

 It is true that Buddha is said to have been born in a garden while his 

 mother was leaning against a tree, but she was at the time surrounded by a 

 large retinue of maids, and soon after the birth she was placed on a couch^ 

 and this incident is what we see in the picture. 



The counterpart of this scene occurs in the Amaravati stone now in 

 the Indian Museum, and in it are to be found the couch, the reclining figure, 

 and the attendants all but exactly the same, the only material difference 

 being that in the one we have a young elephant, the form in which Buddha 

 descended on the earth, and in the other a little child, the form which he 

 assumed immediately after birth. 



The semicircular arch you refer to is not a nimbus, but the back-frame 

 of the bedstead. (See my 'Antiquities of Orissa,' p. 103, woodcut JSTo. 30.) 

 I may add that lions are rarely shown in Yaishnavite sculpture, but seldom 

 omitted in Buddhist scenes. They are the emblems of the title Sinha, 

 which Buddhists are so fond of assigning to the founder of their religion. 



It might be said that the temple from which the picture has been 

 brought is a Hindu one, and a priori we have a right to expect a Hindu 

 scene in it. But a reference to Capt. J. D. Cunningham's paper on the 

 Temple of Pathari, will show that the Hindu origin of the fane cannot be 

 satisfactorily established. Capt. C. says " the general impression left upon 

 the mind by an examination of this temple, is that while it is religiously a 



