1900.] on Ancient Monuments in India. 6l 



photogrnphs and casts gradually revealed to European eyes the precious 

 contents of the uniifled quarries of Hindustan. In this generation of 

 explorers and wi iters, special honour must be paid to two names, to 

 James Fergusson, whose earliest work was published in 1845, and who 

 was the first to place the examination of Indian architecture upon a 

 scholarly basis, and to General Sir A. Cunningham, who only a few 

 years later was engaged in the first scientific excavation of the Bhilsa 

 topes. These and other toilers in the same field laboured with a diligence 

 beyond praise ; but the work was too great for individual exertion, and 

 much of it remained desultory, fragmentary, and incomplete. 



Meanwhile the Government of India was concerned wdth laying the 

 foundations and extending the borders of a new Empire, and thought 

 little of the relics of old ones. From time to time a Governor-General, 

 in an access of exceptional enlightenment or generosity, spared a little 

 money for the fitful repair of ancient monuments. LoM Minto appointed 

 a Committee to conduct repairs at the Taj. Lord Hastings ordered works 

 at Fatehpur Sikri and Sikandra. Lord Amherst attempted some restora- 

 tion of the Kutub Minar. Lord Hardinge persuaded the Court of Directors 

 to sanction arrangements for the examination, delineation, and record of 

 some of the chief Indian antiquities. But these spasmodic efforts re- 

 sulted in little more than the collection of a few drawings, and the ex- 

 ecution of a few local and perfunctory repairs. How little the leaven 

 liad permeated the lump, and how strongly the barbarian still dominated 

 the aesthetic in the official mind, may be shown by incidents that from 

 time to time occurred. 



In the days of Lord William Bentinck the Taj was on the point of 

 being destroyed for the value of its marbles. The same Governor- 

 General sold by auction the marble bath in Shah Jehan's Palace at 

 Agra, which had been torn up by Lord Hastings for a gift to George IV., 

 but had somehow never been despatched. In the same regime a pro- 

 posal was made to lease the gardens at Sikandra to the Executive 

 Engineer at Agra for the purposes of speculative cultivation. In 1857, 

 after the Mutiny, it was solemnly proposed to raze to the ground the 

 Jumma Musjid at Delhi, the noblest ceremonial mosque in the world, 

 and it was only spared at the instance of Sir John Lawrence. As late 

 as 1868 the destruction of the great gateways of the Sanchi Tope was 

 successfully prevented by the same statesman. I have read of a great 

 Mahomedan pillar, over 600 years old, which was demolished at Aligarh, 

 to make room for certain municipal improvements and for the erection 

 of some bunias' shops, which, when built, were never let. Some of the 

 sculptured columns of the exquisite Hindu-Mussulman mosque at 

 Ajraere were pulled down by a zealous officer to construct a triumphal 



