36
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(FEB. 2, 1872
ing at the foot of the wall in No. 3, and I had unfortunately no gun with me, having brought
equalling it in size, or was more likely—as I shall
a sketch-book and measuring rod instead, it was
built when the old fort had become so far ruined
not thought prudent to remain long in that
as to be no longer tenable. The eastern entrance is through a vast hall or yard, with walls of hewn stone in which are
neigbourhood.
For the same reason there was
not time to make more than a plan of the build ing with a rough measurement. The covered gateway is about 40 feet wide and 25 feet deep, and rooms Nos. 5 and 6, though so encumbered
with rubbish as to be quite inaccessible were judged to be about the same size. This approx imation will enable the reader to judge of the size of the other rooms.
The rest of the palace
was probably, as usual in Bengal,built of mud with thatched roofs,
which mode of construc
tion would account for its total disappearance. The last fort of the group is that which I have called the “Stone Fort,” as its walls, as far as they could be seen, are built of hewn stone not covered, as in the other, with mud. It seems
shew presently—a comparatively modern erection,
still to be seen the staples to which, in native
tradition, the Rājá's elephants were fastened. This gateway is called the Háthi durár or Hathi bandhd dwór, (elephant gate, or elephant-enclo sure gate.) The southern door-way,+of which only a crumbled heap of stones remains,—is called the Sona múkhi, or golden faced gate, the origin of which name I cannot trace; but so many places in northern Orissa are called Sonamákhi, even bare salt-marshes washed by the sea, that the appellation must be very ancient, and the allusion
which it was meant to convey has become obscure. The only suggestion offered is—that it refers to
the golden face of the idol J a g a n n i th at
more modern than the mud fort, and may either
Puri—miniature copies of which are to be seen
have been originally a mere out-work to the
in many parts of Orissa. Such an idol may have stood in or near this gateway.
other, which seems improbable from its nearly
THE SO-CALLED DASYUS OF SANCHI.
By BABU RAJENDRALALA MITRA, HON. M.R.A.S.
MR. FERGUsson, in his magnificent work on “Tree and Serpent Worship,” has discussed at great length the ethnology of a race of men repre sented on the Sánchi bas reliefs, whom he desig
nates the D as y us or aborigines of India. The deductions he has drawn, however, are not
warrantable from the premises on which he has argued. As the subject is of some importance in connexion with the history of the S in chi Tope, a summary of it will perhaps not be un interesting.
The people who are called D as y us or abori gines, as distinct from the Aryans, are generally re presented as people of the woods, living in thatch ed huts, wearing a small d hut i wrapped round the waist, and possessing no ornaments. Their head dress consists occasionally of a plain skull cap, but frequently ofplaited or matted hair wound round the head, and tied on the crown in a coni cal form. Occasionally they allow the hair to hang behind in loose tresses. Most of them have beards: a few appear with shaven chins. They sit with their knees raised and legs crossed and tied round with a strip of cloth or a napkin, and liar gambhira. The change was probably caused by their approaching the building from the top of the walls, as they took me ; seen from this position the rooms look like deep
MITRA, HoN. M.R.A.S.
are occupied in splitting wood or other domestic tasks; occasionally navigating in rude canoes; but they never seem to mix with the community at large, except for the observance of religious rites. They have invariably by them a chaffing dish with a blazing fire, a pair of tongs, and a bowl which, from its shape, appears to be made of the hard shell of the gourd. It was carried about hanging from the left hand. In one instance a man has a stand of the shape of a morá, over which he holds something which appears to us, from the tracing of writing on it, to be a scroll or a mass of written paper; a com panion of his is folding or unfolding a similar scroll or bundle, and a third is taking up some burning charcoal with his tongs. Mr. Fergus son, following General Cunningham, takes the first scroll to be a flagon from which the man is pouring something into his fire pot, and the second a fan with which the owner is enlivening his fire ; but the appearance of the scrolls and
the position and action of the hands according to several intelligent European gentlemen includ ing two professional artists, are entirely against vaults, and it was not till I had the jungle cleared from the northern face that I convinced them the rooms were not
underground.
