244 Essay on the Arian Order of Architecture. [Sept. 



passage to show the utter confusion that characterises the ruins of the 

 Avantipura temples. In my opinion their overthrow is too complete 

 to have been the result of an earthquake, which would have simply 

 'prostrated the buildings in large masses. But the whole of the super- 

 structure of these temples is now lying in one confused heap of stones 

 totally disjoined from one anothor. I believe therefore that I am fully 

 justified in saying, from my own experience, that such a complete and 

 disruptive overturn could only have been produced by gun-powder. 

 I have myself blown up a Fort, besides several buildings, both of stone 

 and of brick, and I have observed that the result has always been the 

 entire sundering of all parts, one from another, and the capsizing or 

 bouleversement of many of them. Neither of these effects can be 

 produced by an earthquake. It seems also that Trebeck and Moor- 

 croft would most likely have attributed their destruction to the same 

 agency, had they not believed that the use of gun-powder was unknown 

 at that time : for, in speaking of a traditional attempt made by Shah 

 Hamadan to destroy Marttand, they say, " It is fortunate he was not 

 acquainted with the use of gun-powder." I admit that this destruc- 

 tive agent was most probably unheard of in Kashmir so early as the 

 reign of Shah Mir Shah of Hamadan: but the destruction of the 

 Kashmirian temples is universally attributed both by history and by 

 tradition to the bigotted Sikander, whose idol-breaking zeal procured 

 him the title of But-shikan, or " Ikonoklastes." He was reigning at 

 the period of Timur's invasion of India, with whom he exchanged 

 friendly presents, and from whom I suppose that he may have received 

 a present of the " villainous saltpetre." This is not at all unlikely ; for 

 the furious Tamerlane was as great an idol-breaker as Sikandar himself. 

 Gibbon, it is true, denies that either the Mogals or the Ottomans in 

 1402 were acquainted with gun-powder : but as he points out that the 

 Turks had metal cannon at the siege of Constantinople in A. D. 1422,* 

 I think it is no great stretch of probability to suppose that gun-powder 

 itself had been carried into the East, even as far as Kashmir, at least 

 ten or twenty years earlier; that is, about A. D. 1400 to 1420, or 

 certainly during the reign of Sikandar, who died in 1416. 



8. Even if this be not admitted I still adhere to my opinion that 

 the complete ruin of the Avantipura temples could only have been 

 * Decline and Fall, c. 65— note 93. 



