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Memorandum on the life-sized Statues at Delhi. [No. 2 



against the enemy, than submit to an insolent invader. It is owing 

 to this extraordinary devotion on their part, that their enemies have 

 thought them deserving of the statues here erected to their memory. 

 These two large elephants, mounted by the two heroes, have an air of 

 grandeur, and inspire me with an awe and respect which I cannot 

 describe." 



Of their removal from this position nothing is known ; from the 

 state of the remains it was evidently attended with violence, and 

 is probably therefore due to the iconoclastic tendencies shewn by 

 Aurungzebe, in the latter part of his life. The attempt at restoration 

 would be made during the reign of one of his successors, when it may 

 have been proposed to complete the group, by the addition of a third 

 elephant, bearing the e&gy of the heroic mother of the two Hindoo 

 princes. 



On the abandonment of the design, the fragments would be left to 

 lie neglected and uncared for ; many would be stolen or employed 

 in the decoration of new buildings, until what was left was buried in 

 the ruins of the house where they lay, and from the debris of which 

 they have just been recovered. 



3. The question now arises ; are the statues lately exhumed the 

 same as those described by General Cunningham as existing at 

 Gwalior r That they are independent works by Mahommadan artists 

 h very unlikely, although it is of course possible that they may have 

 been made by order of the Emperor Shah Jehan when the new city 

 and palace were designed by him ; but why, in this case, should the 

 effigies of princes of a hostile race and faith have been selected as 

 subjects ? and how account for the absence of any mention of them 

 in the records that have descended to us ? It is much more probable 

 that they were the work of Hindoo artists, brought from a conquered 

 city for the adornment of the new palace of Shah Jehan ; if so, did 

 they come from Chittore ? I think not, for, had they existed there 

 for any time, they must have been as well known as the Gwalior ones, 

 which does not seem to have been the case. 



4. It must be borne in mind that they are not statuary portraits 

 like those executed by European artists, but mere effigies like " Gog 

 and Magog" in the London Guildhall, and they probably bore as 

 much resemblance to Jemel and Polta as to Maun Sing, or any other 

 Hindoo chief. — Bernier's statement is no proof of their being actually 



