7 4 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
but of skill. The effect,, however, is extremely grand 
when this colossal image bursts upon the sight on 
emerging from the jungle by which it had been pre- 
viously hidden. It appears to start up into the sky 
like the Demiurge of eastern superstition, as if it 
could hold communion at once with heaven and earth, 
upon the latter of which it seems to look down from 
its sublime elevation with the immobility of stern 
and inflexible power. 
The associations on first beholding this gigantic 
sculpture are of the most exalted description. Y ou for- 
get for the moment that you are looking upon a mere 
inert mass of granite ; but the ideas of power, vast- 
ness, and other attributes of divinity, are irresistibly 
associated in the mind, while a feeling almost amount- 
ing to awe is kindled ; until the eye is turned from the 
mighty mockery by the natural impulse of mental re- 
action, and you are suddenly brought to the humi- 
liating consciousness that it is nothing more than a 
huge lump of senseless rock. 
In the neighbourhood of Cabul there are statues 
of similar colossal proportions with this at Sravana 
Belgula, which have been well described by Lieu- 
tenant Alexander Burnes, in his travels into Bokhara. 
“ There are no relics of Asiatic antiquity,” says this 
intelligent writer, “ which have roused the curiosity of 
the learned more than the gigantic idols of Bameean. 
They consist of two figures, a male and a female ; the 
one named Silsal, the other Shahmama. The figures are 
cut in alto-relievo on the face of the hill, and repre- 
sent two colossal images. The male is the larger of 
the two, and about a hundred and twenty feet high : 
