Fig. 73. Group of Chamba Temples.
Hindu and Buddhist Remains.—The scholar who ended his study of Indian history with the close of the first millennium of the Christian era would expect to find a fruitful field for the study of ancient monuments of the Hindu faith in the plains of the Panjáb. He would look for a great temple of the Sun God at Multán, and at places like Lahore and Kángra, Thanesar and Pihowa, for shrines rich with graven work outside and with treasures of gold and precious stones within. But he would look in vain. The Muhammadan invaders of the five centuries which elapsed between Mahmúd of Ghazní and the Moghal Bábar were above all things idol-breakers, and their path was marked by the destruction and spoliation of temples. Even those invaders who remained as conquerors deemed it a pious work to build their mosques with the stones of ruined fanes. The transformation, as in the case of the great Kuwwat ul Islám mosque beside the Kutb Minár, did not always involve the complete obliteration of idolatrous emblems. Kángra was not too remote to be reached by invading armies, and the visitor to Nurpur on the road from Pathánkot to Dharmsála can realize how magnificent some of the old Hindu buildings were, and how utterly they were destroyed. The smaller buildings to be found in the remoter parts of the hills escaped, and there are characteristic groups of stone temples at Chamba and still older shrines dating from the eighth century at Barmaur and Chitrádí in the same state. The ruins of the great temple of the Sun, built by Lálitáditya in the same period, at Mártand[7] near Islámábád in the Kashmír State are very striking. The smaller, but far better preserved, temple at Payer is probably of much later date. Round the pool of Katás, one of Şiva's eyes, a great place of Hindu pilgrimage in the Salt Range, there is little or nothing of antiquarian value, but there are interesting remains at Malot in the same neighbourhood. It is possible that when the mounds that mark the sites of ancient villages come to be excavated valuable relics of the Hindu period will be brought to light. The forces of nature or the violence of man have wiped out all traces of the numerous Buddhist monasteries which the Chinese pilgrims found in the Panjáb. Inscriptions of Aşoka? graven on rocks survive at Sháhbázgarhí and Mansehra in the North-West Frontier Province. Two pillars with inscriptions of the Missionary Emperor stand at Delhi. They were brought from Topra near the Jamna in Ambála and from Meerut by Firoz Sháh. The traveller by train from Jhelam to Ráwalpindí can see to the west of the line at Mankiála a great stúpa raised to celebrate the self-sacrifice of the Bodhisattva who gave his life to feed a starving tigress. There is a ruined stúpa at Suí Vihár in the Baháwalpur State. The Chinese pilgrims described the largest of Indian stúpas built by Kanishka near Pesháwar to enshrine precious relics of Gautama Buddha and a great monastery beside it. Recent excavations have proved the truth of the conjecture that the two mounds at Sháhjí kí dherí covered the remains of these buildings, and the six-sided crystal reliquary containing three small fragments of bone has after long centuries been disinterred and is now in the great pagoda at Rangoon. In the Lahore museum there is a rich collection of the sculptures recovered from the Pesháwar Valley, the ancient Gandhára. They exhibit strong traces of Greek influence. The best age of Gandhára sculpture was probably over before the reign of Kanishka. The site of the famous town of Táxila is now a protected area, and excavation there may yield a rich reward.
Fig. 74. Payer Temple.
Fig. 75. Reliquary.
