568 Note on Grecian Sculpture in Upper India. [Sept, 



be highly amused with the person (a young man) immediately on her 

 of this female reach half way to the elbow, and are most elaborately 

 and beautifully executed, but the appearance of this figure is less 

 elegant than that on the extreme left. At the feet of the group are 

 goblets. The heads of the figures are bound with vine leaves. 



The figures on the obverse are on a larger scale than those on the 

 reverse : the deficiency on the reverse is supplied by trees, forming a 

 grove. The whole supports a circular bason or font measuring sixteen 

 inches in diameter, and which must have been originally about eight 

 inches in depth. As already noticed, this relic is sadly mutilated, 

 and it is probable the bigotry of Muhammadans, (who perhaps consi- 

 dered the work connected with Hindu idolatry,) occasioned the injury 

 done to the faces and breasts of all the figures and a great part of 

 the bowl. Enough, however, remains to identify it as representing 

 a scene in the Bacchanalian festivals. 



For the present I will simply add, that should this piece of sculp- 

 ture prove to be what I conjecture it to be, the correctness of Wilton 

 and Jones' (2) opinions will be strongly evidenced, when they asserted 

 a similarity of the gods of the Greeks and Indians, and that this led 

 to intermarriages, and thus the former merged into and were ulti- 

 mately lost sight of in the Indian community. (3) 



Note. — The discovery of a piece of sculpture bearing evident 

 reference to Greek mythology, if not boasting as unequivocally of 

 the beauty and perfection of Grecian sculpture, might excite less 

 surprize after the elaborate display we have lately had of coins 

 found in Upper India and in the Panjab with Grecian legends, and 

 a combination of Hindu and Greek deities. Yet, in fact, the latter 

 offer no explanation to the former — on the contrary, they relate 

 exclusively to a period comparatively modern, when the worship of 

 Mithra spread through the world with the rapidity of the element of 

 which he was the type, and superseded in a great measure the more an- 

 cient superstitions ; whereas the worship of Bacchus — or of Silenus, his 

 wine-inspired counsellor, must belong to a much more remote period — 

 nor can we trace any clue to it in the present mythology of the 

 Hindus. True there have been traditions preserved in the West, of 

 Bacchus' expedition to India, and of the easy conquest every where 

 following the steps of the hero who could make rivers run with 

 wine — and fought with an army of laughing Bacchantes aad satyrs. 



(2) Vol. i. p. 221, Asiatic Researches. 



(3) This opinion of Wilton's is quoted in Conder's History of India. I 

 cannot immediately say in which vol. of the As. Researches it is to he found. 



