Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/63

 INTRODUCTION. 33 northern sect. According to the same authority, it was super- seded by a Vaishnava literature about the I2th or I3th century, and that again made way for one of Saiva tendency about the latter date. There is no trace left of any Buddhist literature in the south, and but little, consequently, that would enable us to connect the history of the south with the chronology of Ceylon or northern India, nor am I aware of the existence of ancient Buddhist monuments south of the Krishna river which would help us in this difficulty. 1 Not having passed through Baktria, or having lived in contact with any people making or using coins, the Dravidians had none of their own, and consequently that source of informa- tion is not available. Whatever hoards of ancient coins have been found in the Madras Presidency have been of purely Roman origin, brought there for the purpose of trade, and buried to protect them from spoliation. The inscriptions, which are literally innumerable all over the Presidency, are the one source from which we can hope that new light may be thrown on the history of the country, but, with the exception of the edicts of A-roka found in Mysore, none of these inscriptions hitherto brought to light go further back than the 5th or 6th century, and it is not clear that earlier ones may be found. 2 It is, at all events, the most hopeful field that lies open to future explorers in these dark domains ; and, by the labours of epigraphists within the last thirty years, most important light has been derived from them for the mediaeval history of southern India. Those on the raths of Mamallapuram and the caves at Badami, are in Sanskrit, and consequently look more like an evidence of the northern races pushing southward than of the southern races extending their influence northward. From a study of the architecture of the south we arrive at the same conclusions as to the antiquity of Dravidian civilisation that Dr Caldwell arrived at from a study of their literature. The most important Buddhist monument yet discovered in the 1 The Buddhist tower at Negapattam, destroyed in 1867, will be noticed in Book I. chap. vi. p. 206. a The Government of Mysore, with laudable beneficence, employed Mr. L. Rice with a staff of pandits for many years, collecting and publishing the inscriptions found in the state. The results fill twelve volumes, forming the 'Epigraphia Carnatica' (1886-1905), and when properly studied and analysed, these must yield valuable results. For Madras, Dr. E. Hultzsch was engaged VOL. I. in 1886 to collect the Tamil, Kanarese, and Telugu inscriptions of the Pre- sidency, and the results of his work were published in six fasciculi of ' South Indian Inscriptions' (3 vols. 1890-1903), and, partly with numerous Sanskrit records from the other presidencies, in the 'Epigraphia Indica,' vol. iii. el stqq. Previous to 1894, many Sanskrit and Canarese inscriptions were published in the 'Indian Antiquary' (vols. i.-xxiii.), and in the ' Epigraphia Indica,' vols. i. and ii.