Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/462

 408 DRAVIDIAN STYLE. BOOK III. The absence of any central tower or vimana over the sanctuary is universal in Egypt, and only conspicuously violated in one instance in India. Their mode of aggregation, and the amount of labour bestowed upon them for labour's sake, is only too characteristic of both styles. There are, besides, many simi- larities that will occur to any one familiar with both styles. Is all this accidental ? It seems strange that so many coincidences should be fortuitous, but, so far as history affords us any information, or as any direct communication can be traced, we must for the present answer that it is so. The interval of time is so great, and the mode in which we fancy we can trace the native growth of most of the features in India seem to negative the idea of an importation ; but there certainly was intercourse between Egypt and India in remote ages, and seed may then have been sown which possibly had fructified long afterwards. A digression may be made in conclusion with reference to the famous monastery referred to (p. 171), as spoken of from hearsay, both by Fah Hian and Hiuen Tsiang. Its situation has long been a puzzle. The second pilgrim says it was built by one of the Andhra kings as a monastery for Nagarjuna. 1 It had lofty halls in five tiers, each with four courts and temples containing golden images of Buddha. But after a time the Brahmans had ousted the Buddhists and, he adds, "the way of access to it was no longer known." The Tibetan works state that Nagarjuna died at the great monastery of aTal-gyi-ri, a translation of .Sri-Sailam or 5ri-Parvata, both names of a very old place of pilgrimage on a rocky hill overlooking a gorge of the Krishna river, and which is one of the twelve Jyotir-lingas or great Saiva shrines of the Hindus. The place is difficult of access, but was visited by Colonel Colin Mackenzie in I794, 2 and perhaps by four or five Europeans before 1886, when the editor made a hurried excursion to it. Mackenzie had mentioned the animals carved on the surrounding walls in a way that seemed to follow the arrangement described by Fah - Hian. Though beyond the limits of the Kosala kingdom, with which Hiuen Tsiang seemed to connect it, it was most probably within the early Andhra dominions. The reports made to the pilgrims were evidently exaggerated or vague and misunderstood ; and if vSYi-^Sailam were the site of 1 The Chinese syllabus by which Hiuen Tsiar.g represents its name may be trans- literated as Bhr&mara-giri "black bee mountain." He says it meant "black peak," which is equivalent to "Nalla- mallai," the name of the hills on the south of the Krishna river, to the west and south of .Sri-iSailam in Karnal district. 2 ' Asiatic Researches,' vol. v. pp. 303' 314.