1848.] Essay on the Avian Order of Architecture. 277 



In the interior niches too the figures were not carved out of the pro- 

 jecting mass of wall, as at Marttand, but were detached images placed 

 in the recesses prepared for them. If the height of this temple bore 

 the same proportion to its breadth, which was followed in other exam- 

 ples, as at Payach and Pandrethan, and as in the small temple which 

 crowns the Sri Nagar column, it must have stood about 68 feet above 

 the plain. 



2. — The size of the surrounding quadrangle can be distinctly traced 

 on the south by some broken pillars which are still standing, and on 

 the North and East by the line of superstructure resting upon the 

 columns ; and not as stated by Vigne,* by the line " of stone work that 

 formed the base of the colonnade." Vigne's mistake was a very na- 

 tural one : for the whole of the interior of the quadrangle has at some 

 time been silted up as high as the top of the entablature of the peris- 

 tyle. When I first saw this ruin I felt certain that such was the fact, 

 by observing that the line of stone work on the North was much higher 

 than the tops of the broken pillars to the South. I therefore made an 

 excavation, 20 feet in length, in the North-eastern corner of the quad- 

 rangle, which fully proved the correctness of my anticipations. And 

 further, that the silting must have taken place before the reign of 

 Sikandar Butshikan, in A. D. 1396-1416, as the human-headed birds 

 are not in the least injured, every feature being as perfect as when they 

 were first carved. This excavation also showed that the filling up of 

 the quadrangle must have been gradual at first, for the floors of the 

 trefoiled recesses of the peristyle were built up with stone flush with 

 the upper portions of the bases of the columns ; an unsightly work, 

 which I can only suppose to have been rendered necessary by an un- 

 forseen influx of water and its attendant silt. 



3. — The final and complete silting up of the quadrangle, whether 

 by the gradual process of years, or by some sudden catastrophe, had 

 fortunately been the means of preserving the greater part of this peris- 

 tyle from the defacing fingers of time, as well as from the destroying 

 hand of Mahomedan bigotry ; perhaps at some future day to be unveil- 

 ed by European archaeologists y.i all its virgin beauty. 



4. — In the inside the quadrangle is 172 feet in length by 146£ feet 

 in breadth, the longest sides being to the North and South. In the 

 * Kashmir, v. 2— p. 25. 



