
























160 Report of the Archeological Survey. [No. 3, 
ground. Judging from these dimensions, the temple of Kesava Deva 
must have been one of the largest in India. I was unable to obtain 
any information as to the probable date of this magnificent fane. It 
is usually called Keso Ray, and attributed to Raja Jaga Deva, but 
some say that the enshrined image was that of Jaga Deva, and that 
the builder’s name was Ray or Raja Kesava Deva. It is possible that 
it may have been one of the “innumerable temples” described by 
Mahmud in his letter to the Governor of Ghazni, written in A. D. 
1017, as we know that the conqueror spared the temples either through 
admiration of their beauty, or on account of the difficulty of destroy- 
ing them. Mahmud remained at Mathura only 20 days, but during 
that time the city was pillaged and burned, and the temples were rifled 
of their statues. Amongst these there were “ five golden idols whose 
eyes were of rubies, valued at 50,000 dinars,” or £25,000. A sixth 
golden image weighed 98,300 mishkals, or 1,120 tbs., and was decor- 
ated with a sapphire weighing 300 mishkals, or 33tbs. But “ besides 
these images, there were above one hundred idols of silver, which 
loaded as many camels.’ Altogether the value of the idols carried of 
by Mahmud cannot have been less than three millions of Rupees, or 
£300,000. 
170. The date of Mahmud’s invasion was A. D. 1017, or some- 
what less than 400 years after the visit of the Chinese pilgrim Hwen 
Thsang, who in A. D. 634 found only five Brahmanical temples in 
Mathura. It is during these four centuries, therefore, that we must 
place, not only the decline and fall of Buddhism, but its total dis- 
appearance from this great city, in which it once possessed twenty 
large monasteries, besides many splendid monuments of its most famous 
teachers. Of the circumstances which attended the downfall of Bud- 
dhism we know almost nothing; but as in the present case we find 
the remains of a magnificent Brahmanical temple occupying the very 
site of what must once have been a large Buddhist establishment, we 
may infer with tolerable certainty that the votaries of Sakya Muni 
were expelled by force, and that their buildings were overthrown to 
furnish materials for those of their Brahmanical rivals; and now these 
in their turn have been thrown down by the Musalmans. 
171. I made the first discovery of Buddhist remains at the temple 
of Kesava Ray in January 1853, when, after a long search, I found 
