CONTENTS.
Monasteries at Jamalgiri, Takht-i-Bahi, and Shah Dehri.
Few of the recent discoveries in India promise to be more fruitful of important results for the elucidation of the archæology of India than those obtained from the recent excavations of ruined monasteries in the neighbourhood of Peshawur. A great deal still remains to be done before we can speak with certainty with regard either to their age or origin, but enough is known of them to make it certain that the materials there exist for settling not only the question of the amount of influence classical art exercised on that of India, but also for solving many problems of Buddhist archæology and art.
As mentioned above, it is from their coins, and from them only, that the names of most of the kings of Bactria and their successors have been recovered; but we have not yet found a vestige of a building that can be said to have been erected by them or in their age, nor one piece of sculpture that, so far as we now know, could have been executed before their downfall, about B.C. 130. This, however, may be owing to the fact that Bactria proper has long been inhabited by fanatic Moslems, who destroy any representations of the human form they meet with, and no excavations for hidden examples have yet been undertaken in their country; while it is still uncertain how far the influence of the true Bactrians extended eastward, and whether, in fact, they ever really possessed the valley of Peshawur, where all the sculptures yet discovered have been found. No one, in fact, suspected their existence in our own territory till Lieutenants Lumsden and Stokes, in 1852, partially explored the half-buried monastery at Jamalgiri, which had been discovered by General Cunningham in 1848. It is situated about thirty-six miles north-east from Peshawur, and from it these officers excavated a considerable number of sculptures, which afterwards came into the possession of the Hon. E. Clive Bayley. He published an account of them in the ‘Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society,’ in 1853, and brought the collection itself over to this country. Unfortunately, they were utterly destroyed in the disastrous fire that occurred at the Crystal Palace, where they were being exhibited in 1860, and this before they had been photographed, or any serious attempt made to compare them with other sculptures.
Since that time other collections have been dug out of another monastery eight miles further westward, at a place called Takht-i-Bahi, and by Dr. Bellew at a third locality, ten miles southward, called Sahri Bhalol, some of which have found their way to this country; and two years ago Dr. Leitner brought home an extensive collection, principally from Takht-i-Bahi. The bulk of the sculptures found in these places have been deposited in the Lahore Museum, where upwards of 800 specimens of this class of art now exist, and many are being added every season. Some of these have been photographed,[203] and these representations, together with the specimens brought home, are sufficient to enable a student to obtain a fair general idea of the art they represent. The worst thing is, that the excavations have been so unsystematically carried on that it is impossible to ascertain in most instances where the sculptures came from,[204] and in almost no instance can the position of any one piece of sculpture be fixed with anything like certainty.[205]
The following plans (Woodcuts Nos. [92], [93]), of the two principal monasteries which have been excavated in the vicinity of Peshawur, will explain their arrangements in so far as they have yet been made out. As will be seen at a glance, they are very similar to each other,
92. Plan of Monastery at Jamalgiri. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.