182 THE INFLUENCE OF A PARABOLIC MOULDING their proportions have diverged more from those of the Early Buddhist than any other of the Kenneri balustrade order. Such excavations would not have been designed except in the most flourishing condition of the mission ; nor v^ould it have been suspended voluntarily under such circumstances. It is necessary therefore to suppose that the monastery was sup- pressed by violence, and that figs. 9 and 10 exhibit the style of architecture at the epoch of suppression. The excavation at Elephanta has been made by worshippers of Shiva, of whose worship and legends not a trace exists in the Buddhist caves hitherto discovered. According to tradi- tion, the worshippers of this god and the disciples of Buddh long contended for the exclusive patronage of the Indian princes, until the chieftains who supported their respective pretensions met in a general assembly, where the wisdom and eloquence of Shankaracharya, the Shivite leader, gained so decisive a victory that the disciples of Buddh were compelled to emigrate. Proof has already been given that the Buddhist caves of Kenneri were suddenly deserted at a time when the architecture in fashion there was of the same character as that in fashion at Elephanta. This then may have been the epoch of Shankaracharya's victory. At all events the existence of the same style, belonging to opposed religions, within a few miles of one another, proves that the one religion must have subverted the other ; and the desertion of Kenneri at that time shews that the Shivitic faith did then achieve some victory in the Concan. Perhaps the moulding, fig. 13, may afford some clue to this date. It runs round the doorway of a temple in the smaller excavation at Elephanta. Probably, however, this is of later Fig 13, date than the large excavation, since the small basement (fig. 14) is added to the foot of the pedestal of some of its pillars ; and the object of this addition seems to have been to relieve the unsightly uuiformity of the fashionable pedestal.
