1850.] 



of Continental India, fyc 



casionally a gleam of light of considerable value. One of these 

 arises from the circumstance of his having been accompanied by 

 ^ p 13 a se P°y> wno ^"ould seem to have been a 



Brahman* himself, and had resided two 

 years among the Brahmans at Benares ; and who, by his remarks, 

 may contribute something to the elucidation of some matters in 

 hand. Colonel Mackenzie considered these ruins at Brambanam 

 to be decidedly Bauddhistical : the sepoy, on the contrary, consi- 

 dered them to be Brahmanical ; though surpassing in number, and 

 style of execution, any tiling of the kind which he had seen in In- 

 dia. Without deciding this difference, for the present, it may be 

 noted that what Colonel Mackenzie considered to be images of Bud- 

 dha, the sepoy considered to be those simply of tupcis warri ( tapas- 

 vari ) ; and in the temples at Loro-JongroMg, a division of those 

 at Brambanam, certain Jaina or Baudd'ka images were pointed 

 out to him as contradicting his opinion ; having long extended 

 ears and short curled hair : he still maintained that these were 

 simply devotees in the act of tapas ; and that what was supposed 

 to be short curled hair was nothing more than a topi, or kind of 

 cap, worn by ascetics ; common throughout Hindustan proper, and 

 made for that purpose, by a particular class of people. Now, 

 though I differ from the sepoy, on the main question ; and think 

 I am able to reconcile the two opinions : yet the immediate point 

 of notice is the curled hair, or cap. I was so much struck with 

 this observation, on first reading the passage, that I made it a 

 point of special inquiry ; and find from competent Hindu infor- 

 mation, that this kind of skull-cap, actually used to be worn by 

 ascetics performing penance. The mass of plaited hair, or hair 

 allowed to grow without cutting or restraint, is unquestionably 

 one of the indications of the rtshis performing penance ; but the 

 • skull-cap exhibiting the outward appearance of curled hair, it 

 seems, is another mode of head-dress among the severer asce- 

 tics. Thus the sepoy, by the simplicity of truth, and Captain Ba- 

 ker by the record of it, have furnished the means of setting aside 

 much apparently learned and irrelevant speculation. The love of 

 learned display was with Sir W. Jones almost a passion, verging 

 sometimes to weakness ; and it led the imitator*' and caricaturist 

 of his faults, Wilford, into the extravagancies of absurdity ; every 

 just principle of analysis, or deduction, being sacrificed before a 



