TEMPLES OF SALSETTE.
The excavations of the island of Salsette, also contiguous to Bombay, are hewn in the central mountains. The great temple is excavated at some distance from the summit of a steep mountain, in a commanding situation. This stupendous work is upward of ninety feet long, thirty-eight wide, and of a proportionate hight, hewn out of the solid rock, and forming an oblong square, with a fluted concave roof. The area is divided into three aisles by regular colonnades, similar to the ancient basilic, a pile of building twice as long as it was wide, and one of the extremities of which terminated in a hemicycle, two rows of columns forming a spacious area in the center, and leaving a narrow walk between the columns and the wall. In these basilici the Roman emperors of the east frequently administered justice. This magnificent excavation at Salsette appears to be on the same plan, although, doubtless, intended for a place of worship. Toward the termination of the temple, fronting the entrance, is a circular pile of solid rock, nineteen feet high, and forty-eight in circumference, most probably a representation of the lingam, the symbol already alluded to in the description of the temples of Elephanta. In this temple there are not any images, nor any kind of sculpture, except on the capitals of the pillars, which are in general finished in a very masterly style, and are little impaired by time. Several have been left in an unfinished state; and on the summit of others is something like a bell, between elephants, horses, lions, and animals of different kinds.
The lofty pillars and concave roof of the principal temple at Salsette present a much grander appearance than the largest excavation at the Elephanta, although that is much richer in statues and bass-reliefs. The portico at Salsette, of the same hight and breadth as the temple, is richly decorated: on each side a large niche contains a colossal statue, well executed; and facing the entrance are small single figures, with groups in various attitudes, all of them in good preservation. The outer front of the portico, and the area before it, corresponding in grandeur with the interior, are now injured by time, and the moldering sculpture intermingled with a variety of rock-plants. On the square pillars at the entrance are long inscriptions, the characters of which are obsolete, and which modern ingenuity has not as yet succeeded in deciphering. Further up the mountain, a flight of steps, hewn in the rock, and continued to the summit, leads, by various intricate paths, to smaller excavations, most of which consist of two rooms, a portico and benches, cut in the rock. To each is annexed a cistern of about three cubic feet, also hewn in the rock, for the preservation of rain-water. Some of these excavations are larger and better finished than others; and a few, although inferior in size and decoration, in their general effect resemble the principal temple.
The whole appearance of this excavated mountain indicates it to have had a city hewn in its rocky sides, capable of containing many thousand inhabitants. The largest temple was, doubtless, their principal place of worship; and the smaller, on the same plan, inferior ones. The rest were appropriated as dwellings for the inhabitants, differing in size and accommodation according to their respective ranks in society; or, as it is still more probable, these habitations were the abode of religious Bramins, and of their pupils, when India was the nursery of art and science, and the nations of Europe were involved in ignorance and barbarism.