DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.614#0064
28
pillars of the one are square and without ornament,
while those of the other, situated about three hundred
yards off, are square below, then eight-sided, and then
sixteen-sided, and are adorned with exquisitely-carved
devices. Moreover, from the quarry-marks engraved
upon many of the stones found here, it is manifest that
a portion of the buildings was erected about the era
of the Gupta dynasty, or perhaps from the first or
second to the third or fourth century a.d.
There are several ancient edifices in Benares, which,
if not original, are certainly to a large extent built of
old materials. In these, more especially in their columns,
may be traced a gradation of style. "When we compare
the simple bracket or cruciform capital and its plain
square shaft and base, such as we find in the pillars of
the cloisters around the platform of Aurungzeb's mosque
behind the modern Bisheswar temple, and also in the
pillars of a Mohammedan cemetery in the neighbourhood
of Tiliya, Nala, with the elaborately ornamented columns
of the mosque in the Eaj Ghat Fort, we are at once
struck with the contrast, and at the extraordinary de-
velopment which the style—the same fundamentally in
both instances—has received. Various intermediate stages
of diversity are represented in other buildings; but I
cannot now further enlarge on them. The first class of
pillars, however, must, I contend, be of a much earlier
date than the other. Yet it does not follow that this
latter class belongs necessarily to a recent epoch. The
mosque in which the columns are found consists, ap-
parently, of two Buddhist cloisters, or, possibly, of two
divisions of a Buddhist temple, and has been, at times,
pillars of the one are square and without ornament,
while those of the other, situated about three hundred
yards off, are square below, then eight-sided, and then
sixteen-sided, and are adorned with exquisitely-carved
devices. Moreover, from the quarry-marks engraved
upon many of the stones found here, it is manifest that
a portion of the buildings was erected about the era
of the Gupta dynasty, or perhaps from the first or
second to the third or fourth century a.d.
There are several ancient edifices in Benares, which,
if not original, are certainly to a large extent built of
old materials. In these, more especially in their columns,
may be traced a gradation of style. "When we compare
the simple bracket or cruciform capital and its plain
square shaft and base, such as we find in the pillars of
the cloisters around the platform of Aurungzeb's mosque
behind the modern Bisheswar temple, and also in the
pillars of a Mohammedan cemetery in the neighbourhood
of Tiliya, Nala, with the elaborately ornamented columns
of the mosque in the Eaj Ghat Fort, we are at once
struck with the contrast, and at the extraordinary de-
velopment which the style—the same fundamentally in
both instances—has received. Various intermediate stages
of diversity are represented in other buildings; but I
cannot now further enlarge on them. The first class of
pillars, however, must, I contend, be of a much earlier
date than the other. Yet it does not follow that this
latter class belongs necessarily to a recent epoch. The
mosque in which the columns are found consists, ap-
parently, of two Buddhist cloisters, or, possibly, of two
divisions of a Buddhist temple, and has been, at times,