1865.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 169 



torches, fly all about the visitor, flap against his face, and nearly poison 

 him with their stench, while he soon discovers that the soil over 

 which he w T alks is composed of their guano. As there is absolutely 

 nothing of art or antiquities in this filthy place, and as the annoyance is 

 undeniable, the traveller had better decline to enter it, and proceed at 

 once to the other cave, that of Bhaumajo (the Pedestrian's Bamazoo) 

 which is now wholly free from these horrors, and approached by no more 

 difficult access than a steepish path and a short ladder. In the middle 

 of this cave is a sanctuary, still as perfect as when it was first built, 

 the natural walls of the cave supplying the place of the peristyle of 

 Aventiswami, so that he who wishes to restore in imagination the sanc- 

 tuary of that temple, may do so by examining this of Bhaumajo. 

 He may supply from it the pilasters, square topped doorways, pediments, 

 trefoiled arches, and pyramidal roof broken into two stages, which 

 once adorned Aventiswami, and he may even picture to himself its 

 interior decorations, from the immense lotus which now expands over 

 the whole ceiling of Bhaumajo. G-enl. Cunningham's paper, except as 

 to the bats, dirt, and inaccessible position of the cave, will be, as usual, 

 of the greatest service to the visitor. 



"3. At the village of Bhariyar, near Naoshera, the last stage on the 

 road from Murree to Baramula, is a very important temple which was 

 choked up with snow when General Cunningham visited the valley, 

 and he only surveyed it through a telescope from the opposite side of 

 the Jhelum, as he was returning to our territory by way of Mozuffera- 

 bad. He also says that the quadrangle w r as filled with trees which 

 impeded his view of the architecture : this certainly is not the case 

 now. Taken altogether, it is the most complete specimen of a temple 

 which we saw, the general plan being exactly that of the temples at 

 Aventipura and Martund. The upper part of the gateway is gone, and 

 over it is a kind of wooden verandah. So too the top of the stone 

 pyramid which once surmounted the sanctuary has been replaced by a 

 wooden substitute. The peristyle is entire ; and all the chief charac- 

 teristics of the Kashmirian style are here exhibited — the capitals of 

 Doric solidity, the wide intercolumniations, and the trefoiled arches. 

 The temple is less elaborately decorated than those of Martund and 

 Aventipura, but whether this is a proof of antiquity or degeneracy, must 

 be determined by better archaeologists than myself. A careful descrip- 



