18 Notes on Assam Temple Ruin*. [No. 1. 



to feasting and amusement. The inhabitants of a large circle of 

 villages, meet daily in one place ; lascivious* dancing and singing 

 are the chief attractions, and some of the attitudes and gestures 

 used, are precisely those represented in the sculptures. 



The upright stone in plate V. measures 10 % f X 2 feet. The 

 small central figures, each 8 inches in height, represent five of the 

 Avatars of Vishnu ; the missing pillar, to correspond with this, may 

 have represented the remaining Avatars : all these surrounded the 

 entrance to the shrine, but no figure has been found, adapted to the 

 altar that the shrine contained. 



The shafts I have taken for the columns of the temple, I have been 

 describing, are not more than 6^- feet in length. Besides these, 

 four have been found amongst the ruins, ten feet long, and close to 

 where they were discovered, Captain Westmacott observed " vast 

 fragments of the epistylum and frieze, carved with beaded drapery, 

 half buried in the soil." 



These fragments which probably formed the entire entablature of 

 the columns, have now disappeared ; Captain Westmacott is, I think, 

 correct in the position he assigns to them, but I have no precedent 

 for, and would be at a loss to place, the Grecian style of portico he 

 imagined them to have formed. I took considerable pains to find 

 amongst the ruins the remaining members of the column, of which 

 these were the shafts, and the result is shewn in plate VII. where 

 I have given an elevation of the restored column. It is in four 

 pieces ; 1, the capital, from A. to B. ; 2, the shaft, from B. to C. with 

 an ornamented top, a cornice of Satyr heads and beading, surmount- 

 ed by a double moulding; 3, the surbase, C. to D. ; 4, the base, 

 D. to E. My idea of these four columns is, that they supported the 

 roof of an open detached building resembling the porch of the 

 Choigong temple ; such detached buildings are generally added to 

 the modern temples, as a receptacle for the object of worship, when 

 taken out for an airing; or they may have formed the covered 

 entrance, to the walled enclosure containing the temples. 



* Into laciviousness it may have degenerated in Assam, but originally it was not 

 so intended. Nor do the Burmese or Shyans practise such at the present day. The 

 contortions of the body, the " reeling to and fro" are intended to represent violent 

 grief and distraction. — S. F. Hannay. 



