40
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
and ceremonies, make oblations on the hearth
to the three sacred fires, not omitting in due time the ceremonies to be performed at the conjunction and opposition of the moon, and also to “perform the sacrifice ordained in honour of the Lunar asterisms, make the pro
scribed offering of new grain, and solemnize holy rites every four months, and at the win ter and summer solstices.” Nothing has been said by Manu as to the propriety or otherwise of ascetics keeping cattle; but the epics and the the Purānas clearly show that the ancient sages were partial to milk, and the saintly character of V as is h th a was not in any way opposed to
his keeping the famous cow Nandini. The rites enjoined them could not be performed with out an ample supply of milk. The Buddhist ascetics, likewise, lived in huts, and not un frequently collected money enough to dedicate images and topes built at their cost. During their four months vassa they lived in monasteries together, with their religious sisterhood. Some of the hermits in the Sánchi bas-reliefs
are engaged in worshipping the five-headed, N Éga, but as the Hindu recognised in it an emblem of the sempeternal divinity, A n a n ta, and the the Buddhist a race of superhuman
[Feb. 2, 1872.
beings worthy of adoration,-devotion to it would not be by any means unbecoming a hermit, who
is required to observe all the necessary regular and periodical rites and ceremonies. The last and most important argument of Mr.
-
Fergusson in support of the non-Aryan origin of the Dasyus is founded upon their features; but at Sánchi the figures are generally so small, so rough, and so weather-worn, that their indica tions of the aboriginal broad face and flat nose
cannot be relied upon. That the appearance of youth and beauty, and rank and wealth, should be different from that of age, decay, decrepitude, and squalid poverty, is a fact which none will question, and therefore what are taken in the sculp
tures for ethnic peculiarities, may be entirely due to a desire to mark the distinctions of condition.
It may be added that the term Dasyu itself is Aryan, and indicates an Aryan and not a non Aryan race. According to Manu, all those tribes of men who sprung from the mouth, the arm, the thigh, and the foot of Brahma, but
who became out-castes by having neglected their duties, are called D as y us or plunderers (X 45); and the designation therefore fails to convey the idea which the learned author of the History of Architecture wishes to attach to it.
THE TEMPLE AT HALABīD. BY CAPT. J. S. F. MACKENZIE.
SixtEEN miles north of Hasan, in the Mai
patam.
Vishnu Werdhana was converted from
sur province, is Halabid, or as Ferishtah the
the Jaina religion—the religion of his fore
Muhammadan historian, calls it, Dhur Samudra, once the capital of the Belāla kings, who ruled
Rámanujāchārya, a reformer who—protected by
one of the minor states into
the king—hesitated not at using physical force
which Southern
India was formerly divided. Fables and the dimness of a remote period throw illusive shadows over the traditions of these kings of a bye-gone age. Doubt and uncertainty haunt the enquirer into their unilluminated history. From inscriptions and other sources it appears, however, that the Belála kings held the sceptre
fathers—by the celebrated Vaishnava reformer,
to convert the followers of the heterodox Jaina
religion, and by grinding their priests in an oil mill effectually did away with anything like active opposition. After his conversion, Vishnu Verdhana is said to have resided at Bailur (the
present head-quarters of the taluqa, and distant
10 miles from Halabid); and, from an inscrip
from about 950 A. D. to 1310 A. D. when a
tion there, it appears he rebuilt the temple
Muhammadan army, led by Kafur, plundered their capital for the first time. An expedition sent by Muhammad III. in 1326 finally des troyed Halabid. The seat of a declining go
Keshava Perural in the year 1116 A. D.
vernment was removed by Vishnu Werdhana,
the then reigning sovereign, to Jonur, better known by the name of the Moti Taláv (Lake of Pearls), 12 miles north of the famous Seringa
Such is the account given, of the most im portant event in the history of the Belála kings by Buchanan in his Journey through Mysore and Canara." A cursory examination of known
dates, however, proves that the Verdhana, whº became a Vaishnava, was not the same Verdham” who fled before the Musalman invasion of 13%
- Conf. Buchanan, Journey, &c. vol. II. p. 81, and vol. III. p. 401.
