272 A. B. Caddy—Ananta Cave. . [No. 3, 
On two Unrecarded Sculptures in the Ananta Cave, Khandagirt.—Ly 
ALEXANDSR H. Cappy. 
{ Read, February, 1896. | 
During my visit to the eave-holding hills of Orissa, the sandstone 
outcrop of Udayagiri ard Khandagiri, some twenty miles south of Cuttack, 
I had an opportunity of making a eareful search through the yarious 
eaves for objects of interest which might have escaped the scrutiny of 
previous visitors, and I was surprised to find there were still Art and 
Archeological treasures which had been unrevealed to Fergusson and 
his emissaries, to Mr. Locke and his troop of students, to Dr. Rajen- 
dralala Mitra and his men, and all the later visitors, official and other- 
wise, who had been to these hills. 
My own mission was to bring away casts of Acoka inscriptions 
found among the eaves, the Aira Raja’s inscription in the Hathi 
Gupha, and such dedicatory tablets in Acoka character as were to be 
found in several of these caves, and which were mostly figured in Cun- 
ningham’s Corpus Inseriptionum Indicarum. I was also eommissioned to 
photograph whatever of allied interest came in my way. 
It oeceurred to me as very curious that no success had attended 
repeated visits to this cave in discovering the subjects represented on 
two of the four tympana between the arches over the lintels of the three 
doors and one window that opened into the inner sanctuary, seeing that 
more than half of each tympanum was there. ‘T'hey were sculptured but 
unintelligible. The grime of centuries and successive incrustations 
from the cells of the steel-blue hornet had sufficiently obscured them to 
make it hopeless for the casual observer to make anything of them. 
It was now an easy matter to set workmen on the tympana to clear 
out the resinised wax with bamboo scoops and presently the sculptured 
surfaces were exposed. In the meantime I had devised a preparation 
which would facilitate the photographing of this intensely blackened 
stone. A ley of clay and soap, passed through a muslin and applied with 
a flat brush, much as a painter applies the ‘drag,’ shows up a low relief 
with great effect. I photographed the newly exposed sculpture after 
using the preparation. 
