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The author has the honour to submit the accompanying Report on the Archaeological Survey of the Bombay Presidency for the past season. The scheme proposed by the Gibbs and approved by the Government of Bombay contemplated his employment to survey the whole of the Cave Temples of Western India, including also surveys of some at least of the more interesting Brahmanical and Jaina remains. The field indicated in this Minute, including, as it did, Ajanta, Elora, and other groups of caves, etc., in the Haidarâbâd territory, fully met the main object of the Despatch of 11th October 1871, and allowed of his utilizing the whole of the collections he had made privately in preceding years. The Governmentof India, however, in sanctioning the scheme of the Honourable Gibbs, introduced a clause limiting the area of research to the Bombay Presidency only, thus cutting off Ajan?â and other groups of caves just outside the limits of the Presidency,and so rendering impossible the contemplated production of a complete work on the“Rock-Cut Temples of Western India.” This limitation, however, he has no doubt will be reconsidered. For the inscriptions he fully counted on being able to obtain the use, at least, of the volume of photographed inscriptions from the Kanarese Districts, which would have been of the greatest service to him in showing what had already been satisfactorily done, what had better be recopied, and, indirectly, what other inscriptions might be copied, perhaps, for the first time. They supply at least a new chapter in the history of Indian architecture from the sixth to the eighth or ninth century. But it must be borne in mind that these materials do not adequately represent the antiquities of the Kanarese country. They only open up a field that would amply repay a much wider and more detailed survey than he had the means or the time to make. The book contains 44 photographs, twenty are inserted in the Report, with a selection from the drawings and most of the inscriptions.
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ISBN : 9788121221177
Pages : 169
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