948 Description of a Colossal Jain figure [Sept, 



obligation for much valuable instruction and assistance, and the deci- 

 pherment and translation of this, at once recognised the Pali form of 

 many of the letters and expressions, which is an important fact, as it 

 implies, from the more ancient form of the language, a more remote and 

 older date for the images than that in which the temple inscriptions 

 are. Kantharanatha is either a name of Parswanath, meant for Kuntee, 

 Chaturrahati is the Pali form of the Sanskrit Chatur Vinshati (24). 

 Saka Sala, of the Sanskrit Shaka Shala, and Panati of Pranati. The 

 second letter of the group is a very difficult one. Dr. Wilson found 

 it to correspond with an inscription in his private collection from Abu, 

 as also the form of the ^, which the Jains write with a terminating 

 stroke to the left like ru. 



The most interesting letter is perhaps the ^ hu, in the second line, 

 which is conformable with the Gujerat character of the 2nd century. 



The stone is a close-grained dark limestone, whether found in situ 

 near the Nerbudda I cannot say, but probably not far from Barwani. 

 It seems the same formation in which Dr. Leith has discovered fossils 

 in, and which is to be seen in the island of Bombay, on the other side 

 of the causeway, at the breach, but less slatey. The meeting with it 

 350 miles inland on the other side of probably the same basaltic over- 

 flow with which it is connected here, is a coincidence which may prove 

 of geological as well as historical moment. The temple itself requires 

 short notice. In structure it is so decidedly modern from the repairs 

 it has undergone, that little can be elicited regarding its original form ; 

 at present it can scarcely come under any denomination of temple, but 

 that of misra, mixed, a term having reference to the materials with 

 which it is built. 



The oldest Jain temples in India, as Behar, Abu and Girnar, have 

 a large dome in the centre, and occasionally smaller ones in the corners, 

 some have pyramidal spires, as in Nimar Guyt, and Siam, where the 

 building over the Prabhat is especially described as pyramidal ; but there 

 is only one flat one that I am aware of — the temple to Parswinath, half 

 way down the mountain of Samet Sikhar. The circular frustrum still 

 remaining at the Bawangaj temple, over which the modern dome has 

 been placed, might lead to the supposition that the sanctuary and vesti- 

 bule were included in a vaulted roof, as with the temple of Kamalmair 

 in Rajpootana. The Garbha Griba or chief body of the temple is flat 



