Chap. I.]
KOCK-CUT TEMPLES.
IT
for it is always to be remembered, that the laws and manners which the work b c. — details, and the coiTesponding state of society which it implies, did not begin to exist at the time when it was wiitten, but must have preceded it by several ages. Every page of the Institutes, therefore, must be held to furnish indubit- able evidence that about 3000 years ago India was nearly as far advanced in civilization as in the present day, containing a dense population, not merely scattered over the country in rural villages, but collected into large towns and cities, extensively engaged in manufactures and trade, and forming a number of independent states. These, under the government of rulers whose despotism was gi-eatly modified by customs and laws, raised large revenues by a compli- cated system of taxation, brought into the field powerful armies, and executed many stupendous and magnificent works. Among these works are the tem])les nock of Elephanta, Salsette, Adjunta, and EUora, whose testimony, as imperishable as the rocks out of which they have been hewn,' tells of an age, which, though far short of that which was at one time extravagantly assigned, must still in the most ancient be not less than 2000 years.
Another testimony to the antiquity of Indian civilization has been found in niiuioo
mi ... n -I p aatrouorav.
its astronomy. This testnnony, m consequence oi the perverse attem})ts of some philosophers of the French revolutionary school to confront it with the Sacred
temples.
LvTERioR OK THE Cave OF Elephanta.— Froiii Griiidlays Scenery of India.
Records, for the purpose of bringing them into discredit, was justly subjected to a very rigorous examination, and did not come out of it unscathed. The astro-
' As tlie celebrated works mentioned in the text as a collateral evidence of ancient civilization, will afterwards be referred to, along with other works of a similar nature, under the head of Indian architec- ture, it is sufficient to observe here that they belong to two distinct classes, both hewn out of the solid rock, but differin- essentially in this respect— that the one dass consists of pillared and sculptured caverns, of which only the entrance is visible externally; whi'e
Vol. I.
the other consists of rock temples, properly so called, because standing visible in the open air, and com- posed of masses of solid rock, which, fixed ininiove- ably in their original site, have been hewn down into the form of temples (see view of the Kylas Tenijile at EUora, on engraved title of vol. i.), covered over with sculptures and inscriptions, and accompanied w itli numerous statues, often of fantastic shapes and colossal dimensions.
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