THE SEVEN PAGODAS. 



145 



development of the Vedanta, 650 to 700 A.D. ; and as the rest 

 states that a Pallava king built " this abode of Sambhu," the 

 inscription cannot be later than the eighth ^century ;" p. 29. 

 " The assigned date of this inscription (700 A.D.) is also corro- 

 borated by a transcript of some verses selected from it, with 

 additions, at Saluvankuppam in Nagarl of precisely the eighth or 

 ninth century, accompanied by a transcript in old Grantha very 

 near to that of the eleventh century ( ? 1038 A.D., p. 44). This 

 inscription must have been given in these two characters for the 

 benefit of pilgrims from the north." 



I do not clearly understand what Dr. Burn ell's somewhat 

 scattered remarks precisely convey; at page 12 1 find, "At 

 AmaravatI and at Seven Pagodas are inscriptions of a few words 

 each " .... " in a character precisely similar to that used in the 

 cave inscriptions near Bombay, which latter belong to the first 

 century B.C. and the first and second A.D. and in note 4 to 

 the same page (12) , " Hiouen Thsang seems to have considered 

 Conjeveram to have been the southern limit of Indian Buddhism 

 in his day (c. 640 A.D.). As the Brahmanical system of Sankara 

 sprung {sic) up in the next half century, this must have been 

 near the most flourishing period of South Indian Buddhism." 

 And in a foot-note, No. 3, at bottom of page 40, " In the time 

 of Kulottufiga Cola, 1128 (to? 1158), there must have been a 

 great many Buddhists in Tanjore, as Parakrama Bahu (King of 

 Ceylon, 1153-1186) fetched his priest from there according to the 

 Mahavamso." 



The following is also a quotation from p. 37 : — "There can be 

 no question that the caves and monoliths at Seven Pagodas and 

 in the neighbourhood are of Buddhist- Jain origin ; the sculptures 

 on the so-called rathas (monoliths) show (if anything at all) a 

 slight admixture of Saiva notions, such as appear in the later 

 Buddhism. Over several of the figures are, however, Vaishnava 

 names {e.g., Sri Narasimha) which ill-agree with the represent- 

 ations " .... "But as the caves now exist, they have been 

 subsequently extended and adapted to the worship of Siva, or to 

 the combined worship of Vishnu and Siva in the same temple.'* 

 " It is to the period of the adaptation that the dedicatory inscrip- 



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