The ascent of the hill on the north is, from its natural shape, gradual and easy at first, and is in other parts rendered more so, by very excellent steps, cut out in several places where the communication would be difficult or impracticable without them. A winding stair of this sort leads to a kind of temple cut out of the solid rock, with some figures of idols in high relief upon the walls, very well finished. From this temple there are flights of steps, that seem to have led to some edifice formerly standing upon the hill; nor does it seem absurd to suppose that this may have been a palace, to which this temple may have appertained; for, besides the small detached range of stairs that are here and there cut in the rock, and seem as if they had once led to different parts of one great building, there appear in many places small water channels cut also in the rock, as if for drains to an house; and the whole top of the hill is strewed with small round pieces of brick, which may be supposed, from their appearance, to have been worn down to their present form during the lapse of many ages. On a plain surface of the rock, which may once have served as the floor of some apartment, there is a platform of stone, about 8 or 9 feet long, by 3 or 4 wide, in a situation rather elevated, with two or three steps leading up to it, perfectly resembling a couch or bed, and a lion very well executed at the upper end of it, by way of pillow; the whole of one piece, being part of the hill itself. This the Bramins, inhabitants of the place, call the bed of Dhermarâjah, or Judishter, the eldest of the five brothers, whose exploits are the leading subject in the Mahabhârit. And at a considerable distance from this, at such a distance, indeed, as the apartments of the women might be supposed to be from that of the men, is a bath, excavated also from the rock, with steps in the inside, which the Bramins call the Bath of Dropedy, the wife of Judishter and his brothers. How much credit is due to this tradition, and whether this stone couch may not have been anciently used as a kind of throne, rather than a bed, is matter for future enquiry. A circumstance, however, which may seem to favour this idea is, that a throne, in the Shanscrit and other Hindoo languages, is called Singhâsen, which is compounded of Sing, a lion, and ásen, a seat.
But though these works may be deemed stupendous, they are surpassed by others that are to be seen at the distance of about a mile, or mile and half, to the south of the hill. They consist of two pagodas, of about 30 feet long, by 20 feet wide, and about as many in height, cut out of the solid rock, and each consisting originally of one single stone. Their form is different from the style of architecture according to which idol temples are now built in that country. These sculptures approach nearer to the Gothic taste, being surmounted by arched roofs, or domes, not semicircular, but composed of two segments of circles meeting in a point at top. Near these also stand an elephant full as big as life, and a lion much larger than the natural size, both hewn also out of one stone.
The great rock is about 50 or 100 yards from the sea; but close to the sea are the remains of a pagoda built of brick, and dedicated to Sîb, the greatest part of which has evidently been swallowed up by that element; for the door of the innermost apartment, in which the idol is placed, and before which there are always two or three spacious courts surrounded with walls, is now washed by the waves, and the pillar used to discover the meridian at the time of founding the pagoda is seen standing at some distance in the sea. In the neighbourhood of this building there are some detached rocks, washed also by the waves, on which there appear sculptures, though now much worn and defaced: And the natives of the place declared to the writer of this account, that the more aged people among them remembered to have seen the tops of several pagodas far out in the sea, which, being covered with copper, (probably gilt,) were particularly visible at sun-rise, as their shining surface used then to reflect the sun’s rays, but that now that effect was no longer produced, as the copper had since become incrusted with mould and verdigrease.—Chambers. Asiatic Researches.
Thou hast been called, O Sleep! the friend of Woe,
But ’tis the happy who have call’d thee so.—XV. p. 36.
Daniel has a beautiful passage concerning Richard II.—sufficiently resembling this part of the poem to be inserted here:
To Flint, from thence, unto a restless bed, That miserable night he comes convey’d; Poorly provided, poorly followed, Uncourted, unrespected, unobey’d; Where, if uncertain Sleep but hovered Over the drooping cares that heavy weigh’d,
Millions of figures Fantasy presents Unto that sorrow wakened grief augments.
His new misfortune makes deluded Sleep Say ’twas not so:—false dreams the truth deny: Wherewith he starts; feels waking cares do creep Upon his soul, and gives his dream the lie, Then sleeps again:—and then again as deep Deceits of darkness mock his misery. Civil War, Book II. st. 52, 53.
The Aullay.—XVI. p. 40.
This monster of Hindoo imagination is a horse with the trunk of an elephant, but bearing about the same proportion to the elephant in size, that the elephant itself does to a common sheep. In one of the prints to Mr. Kindersley’s “Specimens of Hindoo Literature,” an aullay is represented taking up an elephant with his trunk.
——Did then the Ocean wage
His war for love and envy, not in rage,
O thou fair City, that he spares thee thus?—XVI. p. 40.