164 Report of the Archaeological Survey. [No. 3, 



hands are similar to those of the famous statue of Venus of the Capitol. 

 But in the Mathura statue the left hand is Drought across the right 

 breast, while the right hand holds up a small portion of drapery. The 

 head is slightly inclined towards the right shoulder, and the hair is 

 dressed in a new and peculiar manner, with long curls on each side of 

 the face, which fall from a large circular ornament on the top of the 

 head. The hack of the figure is supported hy a thick cluster of lotus 

 stalks covered with buds and flowers, which are very gracefully arranged 

 and boldly executed. The plump face with its broad smile is the least 

 satisfactory part of this work. Altogether this statue is one of the best 

 specimens of unaided Indian art that I have met with. I presume 

 that it represents a dancing girl, and that it once adorned one of the 

 gateways of the great Stupa near the monastery of Huvishka.' 



179. Three statues of lions have also been discovered, but they 

 are inferior both in design and in execution to most of the other 

 sculptures. They are all of the same height, 3 feet, and are all in the 

 same attitude, but two of them have the left foot advanced, while the 

 third has the right foot brought forward. The attitudes are stiff, and 

 the workmanship especially of the legs, is hard, wiry and unnatural. 

 lb is the fore part only of the animal that is given, as if issuing out of 

 the block of stone in rear, from which I infer that they must originally 

 have occupied the two sides of some large gateway, such as we may 

 suppose to have belonged to the great monastery of Huvishka. 



180. The most numerous remains are the stone pillars of the Bud- 

 dhist railings, of which at least three different sizes have been found. 

 Those of the largest size are 4J feet in height, with a section of 12J 

 by 6 inches. When complete with base and coping, this railing would 

 have been about 7 feet in height. The middle-sized pillars are 3 feet 

 8 inches high, with a section of 9 by 4| inches. The railings formed 

 of these pillars would have been 5| feet in height. Those of the 

 smallest size are 2f feet high, with a section of 6J by 3f inches 

 which would have formed a railing of only 4 feet in height. Of this 

 last size no more than six specimens have yet been found, but two of 

 them are numbered in the ancient Gupta numerals as 118 and 129 so 

 that many more of them still remain to he discovered. If we assume 

 the number of these pillars to have been no more than 129, the length 

 of railing which they formed would have been 144 feet, or with two 



