109

KANARESE POETRY.

APRIL, 1873.]

plication of it to the king of Māmallapuram naturally leads us to conclude that there must have been soºne similarity between him and the Asura Mahābali. Now had Māmallapuram not been a noted city, and its sovereign a powerful rāja, the shrewd Brahmans would not have ventured to pass off a fraud so palpable that it could not fail to be detected.

The shore temple, so close to the sea that the surf in the calmest weather dashes against the doorway, with the usual stone pillar in front of such temples lying in the sea, as well as frag ments of images, large quantities of stone, and broken bricks lying about, some partially buried in the sea, plainly show that at one time buildings

sea P

What else could have rent the massive

ratha, probably very far below the surface of the ground, and lowered all the rest? To imagine that the rock was cracked when the workmen

were engaged in cutting it is not admissible. Neither is it reasonable to think that such work

would have been commenced upon a rock that was already rent in two, for the “marks of the mason's tools are perfectly visible in the exca vated parts on both sides of the rent in such a manner as to show plainly that they have been

divided by it.” It is no objection to this theory to say that the rock-cut temples at Elora are also unfinished, though there are no indications that their completion was prevented by an inun

existed to the eastward which have been de

dation of the sea.

stroyed and overwhelmed by the sea. Had the sea held the same relative position to the shore temple at first as it does now, it is impossible to believe that the temple would have been formed so near to it. The situation of this temple,

that the date of these rock-cut temples synchro nizes with those of Māmallapuram. Is it not reasonable therefore to suppose (knowing the superstitious feelings of the Hindus) that those

therefore, and the remains of ruins towards the

mentioned by Mr. Chambers, it is stated in the catalogue of the Mackenzie MSS. that the whole coast from Mailapur or St. Thomè, down to Māmallapuram, was overflowed by the sea, and that many towns were destroyed. This tradition is confirmed by the appearance of a ruined city about two miles north of Māmalla puram, as mentioned by Sir W. Elliot.

having heard of the submersion of Māmallapu ram, took fright and left the work for ever ? Mr. Gubbins has pointed out (Jour. As. Soc. Ben., vol. xxii.) that in classical days the extrem ity of the peninsula was the entrepôt of commerce between the East and the West. Gibbon says, “Every year about the time of the summer sol stice, a fleet of an hundred and twenty vessels sailed from Myos-Hormos, a port of Egypt on the Red Sea. By the periodical assistance of the monsoons, they traversed the ocean in about forty days. The coast of Malabar, or the island of Ceylon, was the usual term of their navigation,

There is nothing impossible in the supposition

and it was in those markets that the merchants

and tradition that the sea has encroached on the

from the more remote parts of Asia expected their arrival.” There is nothing in the Ma

sea, plainly indicate an encroachment of the sea, and the overthrow of a city. Such traces of a large city destroyed by the sea are confirmed by tradition.

Besides

the Brahmanical tradition

land. That there has been a great convulsion of nature is proved by the unfinished state of the temples, and the great rent in one of the largest rathas. Not one of the temples is fin ished.

How is this to be accounted for better

than on the supposition that a great earthquake lowered the coast and extended the bed of the

It is considered, I believe,

who were engaged on the temples at Elora,

labar coast to exclude the idea that these fleets

carried on merchandise with Māmallapuram, for Malabar is a vague term, applied till lately to the Tamil-speaking inhabitants of the peninsula. The theory that it might have been the Maliar phât of Ptolemy is not improbable.

ON THE RULES WHICH GOVERN KANARESE POETRY. BY CAPTAIN J. S. F. MACKENZIE, MAISUR COMMISSION. -

Kanarese poetry is divided into two great divisions, “Akshara Writta " and “Mátra

Writta,” which in their turn have many sub

• Gibbon, Decline and Fall, (Dr. W. Smith's ed.), vol. I.

p. 192; and conf. Carr, The Seven Pagodas, pp. 162, 163.-E.D.

+ Manarpha emporium, v. 1.-E.D.

divisions.