red sandal-wood statue was afterwards erected to his memory, and which has been described by Hwen Thsang.1

Numerous terracotta toys and figures have been procured by General Cunningham from the village. He states that most of them belonged "to the Buddhist period, as shown by the personal ornaments in the shape of Buddhist symbols." The figures however from Kosam that have been presented to this Museum, by the Archæological Survey, consist chiefly of terracotta toy carts and animal figures, with an almost equal proportion of rude terracottas of Brahmanical deities such as ' Sri,' Mahādevī, Pārvati, Saraswati, Kāli, &c. These objects have therefore been placed along with the Brahmanical sculptures.

Ki. 1.-There is, however, one terracotta head of a human figure, seemingly a woman, that is rather cleverly executed, although the workmanship is coarse. It has been placed among the Buddhist antiquities, because there is an ornament in the hair that may perhaps resemble a trisul, but it is so undecided that it might also be Brahmanical. Hanging from it, behind the ear, are two strings, doubtless representing silver filigree beads. The hair has a curl at the temple on each side as in some Bharhut figures, and is simply brushed back over the rest of the head. The height from the chin to the vertex is 7".

No further particulars regarding the discovery of the head accompanied it than that it was found at Kosām.

Presented by the Archæological Survey of India, 11th August 1882, along with the following objects.

Ki. 2.-A small terracotta head of a human female figure. From the chin to the vertex is 1"50. The hair is divided down the middle and brushed back behind the ears, a lock being brought down over the forehead. I have not observed

1 S. Julien's Vie de H.-T., p. 121: Mém. de H.-T.. t. 1, p. 283.

a similar method of dressing the hair in any of the other sculptures in the Museum.

Ki. 3.-A clay lamp, 3" 80 long, 1′′-75 deep, and 2′′ 60 broad. The body of the lamp forms a deep, nearly round cavity, with a spout projecting forward about 1"-50. The outside is ornamented with discs and lozenge-shaped figures, arranged on the three panels on the body of the lamp. The discs have cup-shaped depressions in their centres, and the panels are separated from one another by raised areas containing these discs, and also dots. The beak or spout of the lamp, which is upwardly turned, has its sides similarly ornamented, and where the beak begins above, there is a similar disc on the upper surface of the lamp.

Ki. 4.-A spoon-shaped stone lamp, with a broad handle; length 4" 30, breadth 2" 50, depth 1"10.

Ki. 5.-A piece of steatite 3" 75 long, 1′′ 75 broad, and 1"-40 in depth. The upper surface is hollowed out into a trough, 2-25 long, 0"60 broad, and 0"-25 deep. On the flat surface, external to this trough, there is a hole on one side as if for the reception of a pin from the opposite half of the mould, for the stone appears to be such.

Ki. 6.—A piece of steatite consisting, as it were, of three superimposed discs, with a contracted portion below them and a cylindrical hole, but broken across. It may have formed the hilt to a handle of some kind.

Kanauj.

In Cabinet No. 2.

The site of this ancient city is five villages on the west bank of the Kāli Nadi, five miles above its junction with the Ganges, and 32 miles south of Fatehgarh in the Farrukhābad District, North-Western Provinces. It is of prehistoric

H

antiquity and, in early historic times, it was the capital of a powerful and extensive Aryan 1 kingdom. It is mentioned by Ptolemy A.D. 140, as Kanogiza, 2 was visited by Fah Hian,3 A.D. 400-415; and in Hwen Thsang's time, 635-648 A. D., it was the most powerful State in Northern India, the sway of the Gupta dynasty extending from the base of the Kashmir hills to Assam, and from Nepal to the Narbada. The name of Kanuj is a corruption of Kanya-kubja “the hump-backed maiden," in allusion to the legend relating to the one hundred daughters of king Kusa-Nabha who were cursed by the Sage Vayu and became crooked because they would not comply with his licentious desires. In 1018, the city was taken by Mahmud of Ghazni, and in 1194 it fell before Muhammad Ghori. It was at Kanauj also, that Humayun was signally defeated by Sher Shah in 1540, driven from India and forced to renounce the empire of Babar. The architectural remains that now exist at Kanauj are chiefly Musalman mausoleums and the Jamā Masjid, the pillars and other parts of which, however, date back to the Hindu period, the mosque doubtless occupying the site of some famous Hindu or Jaina temple. There is also the Hindu shrine of Raja Ajaipāl, probably as old as the beginning of the 11th century A.D. Besides these, there are numerous mounds of brick and pottery, and these are probably the sites of Buddhist and Brahminical buildings, such as the great

5

1 "It formed one of the great traditional centres of Aryan civilization. Hinduism in Lower Bengal dates its legendary origin from a Brahman migration southwards from this city, Circ. 800 or 900 A.D." Imp. Gaz. Ind., Vol. V, p. 204.

Laidlay's translation of the Foe koue ki, p. 161; Cunningham. Arch. Surv. Rep., Vol. I, p. 279: Anct. Geog. of India, p. 376.

Beal's Fah Hian, p. 70.

S. Julien's Vie de H.-T., p. 111. Mém. de H.-T. t 1, p. 244.

5 Imp. Gaz. Ind., Vol. V, p. 204,

6 Fergusson's Hist. of Arch. Vol. II, p.

stūpa erected by Asoka over the spot where Buddha delivered his discourse on the instability of human existence, and the other and smaller tope in which were deposited the hair and nails of the Great Teacher. It has been impossible however, satisfactorily to identify any of these buildings, neither has the site of the Monastery been determined, nor the sites of the two wiharas or chapels; one of which contained a tooth of Buddha in a casket bejewelled with precious stones, and the other a record on its walls of all the leading events in the life of the Blessed One, until he became a Bodhisatwa.

Kj. 1.—Part of a female human figure, 14" high from the waist to the knees, carved in red, white-spotted sandstone, the same as the Mathura figures, which it resembles in its art characters, and especially in the manner in which the texture, or folds of the cloth, is represented by fine transverse parallel ridges at intervals of 0"-50 from each other, in the same way as in the Mathura sculptures, M. 5, and M. 13. The waistbelt is somewhat similar to that worn by M. 4 of the Mathura series, and the female figure has a chain pendant resembling a similar ornament in the M. 9 and M. 10. The close approach that this sculpture makes in its details to those of the Mathura series, leaves but little doubt that it should be referred to about the same period. The left arm, half-way to the elbow, remains, apparently holding a part of the loose portion of the garment. Mr. H. Rivett-Carnac, 1 who discovered this sculpture, and has described it, says the hand is delicately chiselled, and the whole work has been finished ad unguem,' but the sculpturing of the hand appears to be very feeble and the thumb-nail is an extremely crude piece of art. The waist chain has an ornament in front, the exact equivalent of that which is to be found, on a large scale, in the

1 Proc. As. Soc. Beng., 1879, July, p 190.

Gaur Brahminical sculptures, viz., a kind of elephant head, with pointed ears and with floral horns. In Gaur those monstrous heads performed the functions of gargoyles. The right side of the sculpture has been defaced, probably by the Musalmāns.

From a khera or mound at Kanauj.

Presented to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, by H. RivettCarnac, Esq., C.S., C.I.E., 2nd July 1879.

Sankisa.

On the Ajatasatru pillar of the Bharhut Stūpa1 railing, there is a scene representing the descent of Buddha with Indra and Brahma from the Trayastrimṣat heavens, after Buddha had preached his doctrine to his mother and to the dewas. It was at Sankisa or Kapitha that Buddha and the two gods made their descent to earth by the three ladders, and hence Sankisa was one of the spots of pilgrimage resorted to by all pious Buddhists. Both Fah Hian and Hwen Thsang2 visited it, and according to the latter the foundations of the three ladders were in existence during his time, although buried in the earth and built over by devout kings who had erected three ladders resembling the original structures and had covered them with gems. These ladders were 70 feet high, and a wibāra had been built over them containing statues of Buddha, Brahma and Indra. Fah Hian and Hwen Thsang state that Asoka had erected a lion pillar in their immediate neighbourhood, but the pillar which General Cunningham has identified 'Cat. and Hand-book Arch. Coll. I. M., Pt. 1, p. 17.

2 Beal's Fah Hian, p. 62: Julien's Mém. de H.-T., t. 1, p. 237.
Op. cit., p. 238.

4 Anct. Geog. Ind., p. 369: Arch. Surv. Rep., Vol. I, p. 271, Pl. XLVI, Ibid, Vol. XI, p. 22, Pl. IX: none of the six obects figured on this plate are in this Museum. Ferguson's Hist. Arch., Vol. II, p. 459, fig. 970: and for recent discoveries at Sankisa, see Rivett-Carnac, Pro. As. Soc. Beng., 1879, p. 189, and Journ. As. Soc. Beng., Vol. XLIX, p. 127, Pls. XIII to xv.