Indian Antiquary Vol 04

SR No.: 032496
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 410
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

Page 287

SEPTEMBER, 1875.]
ARCHÆOLOGICAL NOTES.
273
to bave been the builder. Just opposite the gate of the altar, were set up: these were the fort there is a masjid, and near it a handsome deadliest offences, which the Law and the Problack marble tomb, none know whose; the phets were never weary of denouncing; and masjid looks very like a Hindu temple, and were the objects and expressions referred to appears to have been adapted from one, contain: properly understood and translate.l, it is cering Ilinda pillars with faces smoothed, and tain that could an Indian follower of Sivn have graven with Arabic inscriptions, and along seen them, he would at once have recognized the wall at the end there is a row of Norman- objects familiar in his own tercples, but, there looking blind arches and a reading pulpit, with is reason to believe, far more grossly represented, pillars once manifestly Hindu. Not far from and worshipped with rites now only heard of in this in the plain there is a beautiful Hinda sects like the Maharajas, or at orgies held mantupam consisting of a domed canopy sup- on particular occasions in certain temples of ported by slender elegant fluted pillars: this Southern India. too the Musalmins have appropriated, and Before quitting this locality, I venture to placed in it a Pir's tomb of very solid granite, refer to a passage in Dr. Burnell's lately pubsupported at the four corners by legs, and with lished admirable work, the Elements of Souththe top worked couch-fashion. Twice or thrice Inlian Palæography. At page 78, referring to by the long dreary road a mouldering brick the paucity of historical inscriptions, he observes: tomb marks the resting place of one of the "The great irrigation works of the Chon stout fellows who marched with Calliaud. Kavori delta were chiefly constructed by
"The high pyramidal hill seen in the plate Chola princes in the eleventh and twelfth cen. rising beyond the boulder-ridge, from which taries, but I have never been able to hear of it is about a mile distant, is named Sivaya any inscriptions referring to them; and Major Male, i.e. Siva's Hill, and is crowned with a Mead, R.E., who has visited every part of them, Siva temple enclosed by a remarkably high tells me he has never seen anything of the kind." blank wall to which a fine broad steep flight At Museri, however, immediately opposite of 1099 steps lends up from the bottom. I as-Kulitale, on the north bank of the river, there cended these one hot morning, and found is an extraordinarily massive granite bridge, the pall-up very exhausting. On reaching the built in the days of the râjas, over the fine top, the people with me did not like the temple irrigation channel that skirts the river, and on even to be approached, so I made no attempt one side of it an inscription is cut, which, in to entor, but would not be stayed from sitting conjunction with the local pandits, I rendered down in the shadow of the high wall, which was thus, though not expert enough to vouch for its pierced by a lofty entrance that appeared to absoluto correctness: "The channel-head was make a sharp turn at a short distance within, cut by Lozhakk on ân during his reign, as a like the entrance to a fort. All these southern monument to the memory of Karikal Choprovinces are dotted over with isolated hills zhân-the flowing treasure of Manmudi. and rocks of varying sizes, almost invariably chozhân-pettai-the key of the prosperous surmounted by temples approached by long country belonging to the three kings of the flights of steps. The temple on Mount Gerizim South." Some archæologist near the spot may was so approached, and very similar indeed perhaps correct and explain this, or send a copy must have been the high places' "o often to Dr. Burnell; mine has been lost. Though mentioned in the historical books of the Old in an agraharam, there is a temple close to Testament, always with anger and reprobation, the bridge to an indigenous god of the soil, as connected with the idolatries and abomina- whom the Brâhmaņs disown and would fain distions into which Israel was continually laps- lodge --which looks as if the place dated from ing.* It was on these high places that the pre-Brahmaņical times. The people assigned an "images' and 'groves,' the accursed thing that antiquity of 1300 years to the bridge and inJefiled Israel (Joshua vii.), and the image pro- scription! The Pandya Chola and Chera king. voking to jealousy' which Ezekiel saw at the verydoms are probably referred to in the latter.
* 2 Chron. xxxiii. 3; i Kings, xiv. 23. See, too, the curious account of the calling of Saul, 1 Sam. I. 5.