Notes on the Ruins at JKahdballpuram. [No. 7. 



in slothful idleness. This is exactly what was done by Sir Charles 

 Metcalfe, in our Upper Provinces during the famine of 1837-8, and 

 it does not seem impossible that similar events might suggest simi- 

 lar remedies, to beneficent and intelligent minds, even at an interval 

 of many centuries. Nor are we without some indications that such 

 actually has been the case : for Mr. Taylor, quoting from the 

 Mackenzie papers, says : 



" It is said that in the Kali Yuga, Singhama Nada, a Zemindar of 

 the Vellugotivara race, ruled at Mallapoor (Mavellipuram) ; in that 

 time, during a famine, many artificers resorted hither, and wrought 

 on the mountain a variety of works during three years." 



This theory will explain how in both cases, (Ellora and Mahabali- 

 puram,) a number of works were commenced simultaneously, in 

 order to employ at once a large number of workmen : and how they 

 came to be left unfinished ; the people naturally returning to their 

 ordinary occupations, when the pressure of famine was removed. 



I must not omit to mention another tradition, which attributes 

 the construction of these works to a body of Northern artificers, who 

 fled from the tyranny of their own or some conquering prince, and 

 were suddenly recalled to their homes, by proffered favours and con- 

 cessions on his part ; nor the conjecture of Mr. James Eergusson, 

 who, discrediting this story, accepts Singhama Nayadu as the prince 

 to whom the excavations are due ; and tracing him to his death in 

 battle, while besieging the fort of Jalli Palli in the thirteenth cen- 

 tury, conceives this event to be a more probable cause of the sudden 

 interruption of the works, " as they were not part of the religion of 

 the people, nor was it likely that his successor would continue the 

 fpllies of his parent." Either of these suppositions would certainly 

 account for the non-completion of the works at Mababalipoor : but 

 we should then have to seek out some analogous cause for the same 

 circumstance at Ellora : and the remarkable repetition of the signi- 

 ficant group of sculpture would remain totally unexplained. 



There are a variety of other sculptures both of beasts and human 

 beings ; and often presenting a mixture of both. The most conspi- 

 cuous is the king snake, with the head and body of a man, termina- 

 ting in extensive serpentine convolutions, often winding round other 

 groups* They are nearly all on the eastern face of the rock : and 



