DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9541#0682
658 FURTHER INDIA. Book VIII.
Dutch antiquarians have mistaken every model of a dagoba—of which
thousands exist in India—and described it as a lingam, and every
Tulsi vase as a Yoni. In most cases they are neither the one nor the
other. Even this mistake, however, is instructive, as it shows how
much of their emblems, at least, these religions interchanged in the
ages of toleration. They are distinct enough now, but before a.d. 750
it is difficult to draw a line anywhere.
At Panataram there is another temple, which, if airy one in the
island is entitled to be called a Serpent temple, certainly merits
that appellation. The Batavian Society have devoted twenty-two
photographs to the illustration of its sculptures, but have given no
plan and not one syllable of description. There is not even a general
view from which its outline might be gathered, and no figure is
introduced from which a scale might be guessed. Its date appears
to be a.d. 1416. The figures, however, from which this is inferred are
not on the temple itself but on a bath or tank attached to it, though,
from the character of its sculptures, it is almost certainly coeval.
The reason why it is called a Serpent temple is, that the whole of
the basement-moulding is made up of eight great serpents, two on
each face, whose upraised heads in the centre form the side pieces of
the steps that lead up to the central building, whatever that was.
These serpents are not, however, our familiar seven-headed Nagas
that we meet with everywhere in India and Cambodia, but more like
the fierce crested serpents of Central America. The seven-headed
serpent does occur very frequently among the sculptures at Boro
Buddor—never independently, however, nor as an object to be wor-
shipped, but as adorning the heads of a Naga people who come to
worship Buddha or to take a part in the various scenes represented
there. Even then they are very unlike the Indian Naga, whose hood
is unmistakably that of an expanded cobra. Those at Boro Buddor
and Panataram are crested snakes, like that represented in the Japanese
woodcut in 'Tree and Serpent Worship,' page 56.
The sculptures on these monuments are not of a religious or
mythological character, but either historical or domestic. What they
represent may easily be ascertained, for above each scene is a short
descriptive inscription, quite perfect, and in a character so modern
that I fancy any scholar on the spot might easily read them. It,
probably, has been done, but our good friends the Dutch are never in
a hurry, and we must, consequently, wait.
Meanwhile it is curious to observe that we know of only two
monuments in our whole history which are so treated, and these the
earliest and the last of the great school:1 that at Bharhut, so often
alluded to above, erected two centuries before Christ: and this one,
1 Not however, of the more modern class of tenrplcs, inasmuch as when John
Dutch antiquarians have mistaken every model of a dagoba—of which
thousands exist in India—and described it as a lingam, and every
Tulsi vase as a Yoni. In most cases they are neither the one nor the
other. Even this mistake, however, is instructive, as it shows how
much of their emblems, at least, these religions interchanged in the
ages of toleration. They are distinct enough now, but before a.d. 750
it is difficult to draw a line anywhere.
At Panataram there is another temple, which, if airy one in the
island is entitled to be called a Serpent temple, certainly merits
that appellation. The Batavian Society have devoted twenty-two
photographs to the illustration of its sculptures, but have given no
plan and not one syllable of description. There is not even a general
view from which its outline might be gathered, and no figure is
introduced from which a scale might be guessed. Its date appears
to be a.d. 1416. The figures, however, from which this is inferred are
not on the temple itself but on a bath or tank attached to it, though,
from the character of its sculptures, it is almost certainly coeval.
The reason why it is called a Serpent temple is, that the whole of
the basement-moulding is made up of eight great serpents, two on
each face, whose upraised heads in the centre form the side pieces of
the steps that lead up to the central building, whatever that was.
These serpents are not, however, our familiar seven-headed Nagas
that we meet with everywhere in India and Cambodia, but more like
the fierce crested serpents of Central America. The seven-headed
serpent does occur very frequently among the sculptures at Boro
Buddor—never independently, however, nor as an object to be wor-
shipped, but as adorning the heads of a Naga people who come to
worship Buddha or to take a part in the various scenes represented
there. Even then they are very unlike the Indian Naga, whose hood
is unmistakably that of an expanded cobra. Those at Boro Buddor
and Panataram are crested snakes, like that represented in the Japanese
woodcut in 'Tree and Serpent Worship,' page 56.
The sculptures on these monuments are not of a religious or
mythological character, but either historical or domestic. What they
represent may easily be ascertained, for above each scene is a short
descriptive inscription, quite perfect, and in a character so modern
that I fancy any scholar on the spot might easily read them. It,
probably, has been done, but our good friends the Dutch are never in
a hurry, and we must, consequently, wait.
Meanwhile it is curious to observe that we know of only two
monuments in our whole history which are so treated, and these the
earliest and the last of the great school:1 that at Bharhut, so often
alluded to above, erected two centuries before Christ: and this one,
1 Not however, of the more modern class of tenrplcs, inasmuch as when John