1834.] Memoir on the Topes and Antiquities of Afghanistan. 321 



II.— Memoir on the Topes and Antiquities of Afghanistan. By J. G. 



Gerard, Esq. Surgeon, Beng. Est., addressed to the President of the 



Asiatic Society, from Jelaldbdd, 4th Dec. 1833. 



[Read at the Meetings of ths 30th April and 20th May.] 



The topes or edifices of which Manikydla is already familiar to us 

 by the enterprising researches of General Ventura, had appealed to 

 our curiosity in the journey to Turkistdn, but three only were visited 

 en passant ; viz. Manikydla itself, one at Usmdn Khdti'r in the basin of 

 the Indus, and another at Peshdwer. On my return to Kabul, in 

 November last, ample gratification awaited me, through the zealous 

 exertions of Messrs. Martin Honigberger and Masson, whom I 

 met in that city. 



The interest excited by the labours of these travellers (as might be 

 supposed) was not limited to the mere inspection of their collections, 

 which were displayed to me with an open candour that leaves me 

 their debtor. I followed up the inquiry to which they had unfolded 

 to me the clue ; and though unproductive of similar results to those 

 which have crowned their exertions, I am enabled to speak to some 

 points from actual experience, and hope to have it in my power to add 

 more hereafter. 



The monuments now about to be considered, which were first intro- 

 duced to our notice by Mr. Elphinstone, are calculated to rouse the 

 attention of the antiquarian and the philosopher, when he surveys the 

 relics they disclose in connexion with dynasties, of which all our 

 knowledge is scarcely more than the faintest lineaments, and of the 

 events to which they yielded and ceased to exist, history gives us 

 little or no account. To have a prospect of filling up a blank in 

 chronological annals is of itself sufficiently interesting, but it is doubly so 

 when these may serve to illustrate the career of one whose exploits are 

 a theme of so much fame, and whose foot- steps have employed so 

 many pens to trace even consistently. 



These ancient edifices may perhaps present to us the sepulchral remains 

 of the Bactrian kings, and others who succeeded to their sway ; but, whe- 

 ther we view them as cotemporary with the Grecian dynasty of Balkh 

 in Turkistdn, or of those subsequent satrapies which emanated from the 

 remains of that kingdom, the same thoughts recur, the same sug- 

 gestions rise, Who were those kings ? and what was the extent of 

 their individual sway in these and other regions ? for there is no doubt 

 that the whole of the Panjdb, and even a great part of the Gangetic 

 territory and Sind, were the seat of their dominion, whether this was 

 Indo-Scythic or Indo-Grecian ; — by what revolutions their reign termi- 



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