1C6 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [Sept. 



and extent of its architectural remains, and therefore of the twofold 

 pleasure in store for us when we pay it a visit. They are described, 

 though imperfectly, by Mr. Fergusson in his Hand-booh of Architecture, 

 and very fully by General Cunningham in the Asiatic Society's Journal, 

 September, 1848. It would be waste of time to repeat what he has 

 so well told : but I desire to write a few lines introductory to an account 

 of some temples omitted in that paper, to be furnished I hope by my 

 friend, Mr. Cowie, when he has completed his service as chaplain in 

 Kashmir for the present year. In these short notes I shall assume an 

 acquaintance either with Mr. Fergusson's or General Cunningham's 

 sketch of Kashmirian architecture, and especially with its resemblance 

 to Greek art. 



" 1. On the Jhelum, half way between Srinagar and Islamabad is 

 the site of Aventipura, where are the shattered remains of two large 

 temples, identified by General Cunningham with the Aventiswami and 

 Aventeshwara of Kashmirian historians, both dedicated to Siva, for 

 Swami and Ishwar when they stand alone, are, as is well known, 

 especially applied to the divinity. What I have now to tell is about 

 the smaller of the two, Aventiswami, which consisted as usual of 

 a vaos or sanctuary, the temple proper, standing in the middle of a 

 large quadrangle, with a lofty gateway in the middle of one side.* 

 Of this gateway, a considerable portion remains, but the sanctuary is 

 reduced to a mass of huge stones and fragments of columns and carving 

 heaped together in a confused mound. As wo stood examining it, a 

 scene occurred resembling that in the Antiquary, when Edie Ochiltree 

 distrusts Mr. Oldbuck's speculations as to the date of a supposed 

 Roman earthwork, by the inopportune remark, ' I mind the bigging 

 of it.' I was reading aloud for the benefit of our party, General* 

 Cunningham's account of the temple, and his positive assertions that 

 it could not have been destroyed by an earthquake, but must have 

 been blown up by the gunpowder of some Mahometan iconoclast, 

 Sikander or Aurungzib, when an old village patriarch, who found out 

 what I was saying from one of the Maharajah's officials who had been 

 scut to escort us, suddenly exclaimed, ' But it was not blown up : I 



* Henceforth I shall always use "Sanctuary' 1 for this inner building, the 

 Bapposed abode of the god, and " Temple" for the whole structure, peristyle, 

 ianctuary, arid gateway. J5ut in some cases the Temple consists of nothing bufc 

 ■ oary. 



