Mathura A District Memoir Chapter-7

THE CITY OF MATHURA (concluded): ITS EUROPEAN INSTITUTIONS AND MUSEUM.
A Light railway, on the metre gauge, 291/2 miles in length, which was opened for traffic on the 19th of October, 1875, now connects the city with the East India Line, which it joins at the Hathras Road station. The cost was Rs. 9,55,868, being about Rs. 30,000 a mile, including rolling stock and every-thing else. Of this amount Rs. 3,24,100 were contributed by local shareholders, and the balance, Rs. 6,31,763, came from Provincial Funds. Interest is guaranteed at the rate of 4 per cent. per annum, with a moiety of the surplus earnings that may at any time be realized. The line has proved an unques tionable success and its yearly earnings continue to show a steady increase. But the principal shareholders—including the Seth, who invested as much as a lakh and-a-half in it—were certainly not attracted by the largeness of the pecuniary profit ; for 12 per cent. is the lowest return which Indian capitalists ordinarily receive for their money. They were entirely influenced by a highly com mendable public spirit and a desire to support the local European authorities, who had shown themselves personally interested in the matter."The ultimate success of the line has now been secured by its junction with the Rajputana State Railway. The distance being only some 25 miles, the earthwork was car ried out during the late famine, and the scheme is now completed but for the bridge over the Jamuna. In the design that has been supplied there are 12 divs of 98 feet each, with passage both for road and railway traffic and two foot-paths, at an estimated cost of Rs. 3,00,000. As the receipts from tolls on the existing pontoon bridge are about Rs. 45,000 per annum, even a larger expenditure might safely be incurred. Cross sections of the river have been obtained, and a series of borings taken, which show a flood channel of 1,000 feet and clay foundations underlying the land at 33 feet. The site is in every way well suited for the purpose and presents no special engineering difficulties but the construction of so large a bridge must necessarily be a work of time, and before it is completed it is probable that the line will have been extended from its other end, the Hathras terminus, to Farukhabad and so on to Cawnpur, the great centre of the commerce of Upper India. As yet, the line labours under very serious disadvantages from being so very short and from the necessity of breaking bulk at the little wayside station of Mendu, the Hathras Road junc tion. Consequently, traders who have goods to despatch to Hathras find it cheaper and more expeditious to send them all the way by road, rather than to hire carts to take them over the pontoon bridge and then unlade them at the station and wait hours, or it may be days, before a truck is available to carry them on. Thus the goods traffic is very small, and it is only the passen gers who make the line pay. These are mostly pilgrims, who rather prefer to loiter on the way and do not object to spending two hours and fifty minutes in travelling a distance of. 291/2 miles. As the train runs along the side of the road, there are daily opportunities for challenging it to a race, and it must be a very indifferent country pony which does not succeed in beating it.
The Municipality’has a population of 55,763, of whom 10,006 are Muham madans. The annual income is a little under Rs. 50,000 ; derived, in the absence of any special trade, almost exclusively from an octroi tax on articles of food, the consumption of which is naturally very large and out of all proportion to the resident population, in consequence of the frequent influx of huge troops of pil grims. The celebrity among natives of the Mathura pera, a particular kind of sweetment, also contributes to the same result. Besides the permanent main tenance of a large police and conservancy establishment, the entire cost of pav ing the city streets has been defrayed out of municipal funds, and a fixed proportion is anually allotted for the support of different educational establishments.
The High School, a large hall in a very un-Oriental style of architecture, was opened by Sir William Muir on the 21st January, 1870. It was erected at a cost of Rs.13,000, of which sum Rs. 2,000 were collected by voluntary subscription, Rs. 3,000 were voted by the municipality, and the balence of Rs. 8,000 granted by Government The City Dispensary, immediately opposite the Kans-ka-tila and adjoining the Munsif’s33 a Court, has accommodation for 20 in-door patients ; there is an ordinary attendance per diem of 50 applicants for out-door relief, and it is in every respect a well-mana ged and useful institution.
The Cantonments, which are of considerable extent, occupy some broken and undulating ground along the river-side between the city and the civil lines. In consequence of the facilities for obtaining an abundant supply of grass in the neighbourhood, they are always occupied by an English cavalry regiment. The barracks are very widely scattered, an arrangement which doubtless is attended with some inconveniences, but is apparently conducive to the health of the troops, for there is no station in India where there is less sickness — a happy result, which is also due in part to the dryness of the climate during the greater part of the year and the excellence of the natural drainage in the rains.
The English Church, consecrated by Bishop Dealtry in December, 1856, is in a nondescript style of architecture, but has a not inelegant Italian campanile, which is visible from a long distance. The interior has been lately enriched by a stained-glass window in memory of a young officer of the 10th Hussars, who met his death by an accident while out pig-sticking near Shergarh.
The adjoining compound was for many years occupied by a miserably mean and dilapidated shed, which was most appropriately dedicated to St. Francis, the Apostle of Poverty, and served as a Catholic Chapel. This was taken down in January, 1874, and on the 18th of the same month, being the feast of the Holy Name, the first stone was laid of the new building, which bears the title of the Sacred Heart. The ground-plan and general proportions are in accordance with ordinary Gothic precedent, but all the sculptured details, whether in wood or stone, are purely Oriental in design. The carving in the tympanum of the three doorways, the tracery in the windows, both of the aisles and the clerestory, and the highly decorated altar in the Lady Chapel, may all be noted as favourable specimens of native art. The dome which surmounts the choir is the only feature which I hesitate to pronounce a success, as seen from the outside; its interior effect is very good. I originally intended it to be a copy of a Hindu sikhara, such as that of the temple of Madan Mohan at Bindraban; but fearing that this might prove an offence to clerical prejudices, I eventually altered it into a dome of the Russian type, which also is distinctly of Eastern origin and therefore so far in keeping with the rest of the building. As every compromise must, it fails of being entirely satisfactory.
The eastern half of the Church, consisting of the apse, choir, and two transepts, was roofed in and roughly fitted up for the celebration of Mass by All Saints’ Day, 1874, only nine months after the work had been commenced. The nave and aisles were then taken in hand, and on the recurrence of the same feast, two years later, in 1876, the entire edifice was solemnly blessed by the Bishop of Agra. On that occasion the interior presented a very striking appearance, the floor being spread with handsome Persian carpets, and a profu sion of large crystal chandeliers suspended in all the inter-columniations ; while the Bishop’s throne of white marble was, surmounted, by a canopy of silk and cloth of gold ; magnificent baldachinos, also of gold embroidery, were suspend ed above the three altars, and the entire sanctuary was draped from.top to bot tom with costly Indian tapestry. These beautiful accessories, several thousands of rupees in value, were kindly lent by the Seths, the Raja of Hathras and other leading members of the Hindu community, many of whom had also assist ed with handsome pecuniary donations. As a further indication of their liberal sentiments, they themselves attended the function in the evening—the first public act of Christian worship at which they had ever been present—and expressed themselves as being much impressed by the elaborate ceremonial and the Gregorian tones, which latter they identified with their own immemorial Vedic chants. In consequence of my transfer from the district, the building, though complete in essentials, will ever remain architecturally unfinished. The western facade is flanked by two stone stair-turrets (one built at the cost of Lala Syam Sundar Das) which have only been brought up to the level of the aisle roof, though it was intended to raise them much higher and put bells in them. There were also to have been four kiosques at the corners of the dome, for the reception of statues, but two only have been executed; the roof of the transepts was to have been raised to a level with that of the nave, and the plain parapet of the aisles would have been replaced by one of carved stone. The High Altar, moreover, is only a temporary erection of brick and plaster. I was at work upon the Tabernacle for it, when I received Sir George Cooper’s orders to go; and naturally enough they were a great blow to me. The total cost had been Rs. 18,100.
In the civil station most of the houses are large and commodious and, being the property of the Seth, the most liberal of landlords, are never allowed to offend the eye by falling out of repair. One built immediately after the mutiny for the use of the Collector of the district is an exceptionally handsome and sub stantial edifice. The Court-house, as already mentioned on page 106, was com pleted in the year 1861, and has a long and rather imposing facade; but though it stands at a distance of not more than 100 yards from the high road, the ground in front of it has been so carelessly planted that a person, who had no professional business to take him there, might live within a stone’s throw for years and never be aware of its existence. In immediate proximity are the offi ces of the Tahsildar, a singularly mean and insignificant range of buildings, as if purposely made so to serve for a foil to another building which stands in the same enclosure.
This is now used, or (as perhaps it would be more correct to say) at the time of my leaving the district was intended to be used, as a Museum. It was commenced by Mr. Thornhill, the Magistrate and Collector of the district, who raised the money for the purpose by public subscription, intending to make of it a rest-house for the reception of native gentlemen of rank, whenever they had occasion to visit head-quarters. Though close to the Courts, which would be a convenience, it is too far from the bazar to suit native tastes, and even if it had been completed according to the original design, it is not probable that it would ever have been occupied. After an expenditure of Rs. 30,000, the work was interrupted by the mutiny. When order had been restored, the new Collector, Mr. Best, with a perversity by no means uncommon in the records of Indian local administration, set himself at once, not to complete, but to mutilate, his predecessor’s handiwork. It was intended that the building should stand in ex tensive grounds of its own, where it would certainly have had a very pleasing architectural effect ; but instead of’ this the high road was brought immediately in front of it, so as to cut it off entirely from the new public garden ; the offices of the Tahsildar were built on one side, and on the other was run up, at a most awkward angle, a high masonry wall ; a rough thatched roof was thrown over its centre court ; doorways were introduced in different places where they were not wanted and only served as disfigurements, and the unfortunate building was then nick-named "Thornhill’s Folly" and abandoned to utter neglect.
It remained thus till 1874, when the idea of converting it into a Museum received the support of Sir John Strachey, who sanctioned from provincial funds a grant-in-aid of Rs. 3,500. The first step taken ‘was to raise the centre court by the addition of a clerestory, with windows of reticulated stone tracery, and to cover it with a stone vault, in which (so far as constructional peculiari ties are concerned) I reproduced the roof of the now ruined temple of Harideva at Gobardhan. The cost amounted to Rs. 5,336. A porch was afterwards added at a further outlay of Rs. 8,494 ; but for this I am not responsible. It is a beautiful design, well executed, and so far it reflects great credit on Yusuf, the Municipal architect ; but it is too delicate for an exterior facade on the side of a dusty road. Something plainer would have answered the purpose as well, besides having a more harmonious effect. After my transfer, operations at once came to a stand-still and the valuable collection of antiquities I had left behind me remained utterly uncared for, till I took upon myself to represent the matter to the local Government. I was thereupon allowed to submit plans and estimates for the completion of the lower story by filling in the doors and win dows, without which the building could not possibly be used, and my proposals were sanctioned. When I last visited Mathura, the work had made good progress, and I believe has now been finished for some time ; but many of the most interesting sculptures are still lying about in the compound of my old bungalow.
Though the cost of the building has been so very considerable, nearly Rs. 44,000, it is only of small dimensions; but the whole wall surface in the central court is a mass of geometric and flowered decorations of the most artis tic character. The bands of natural foliage—a feature introduced by Mr. Thornhill’s own fancy—are very boldly cut and in themselves decidedly handsome, but they are not altogether in accord with the conventional designs of native style by which they are surrounded. The following inscription is worked into the cornice of the central hall:-
"The State having thought good to promote the ease of its subjects, gave intimation to the Magistrate and Collector, who then, by the co-operation of the chiefmen of Mathura, had this house for travellers built with the choicest carved work Its doors and walls are polished like a mirror; in its sculpture every kind of flower-bed appears in view; its width and height were assigned in harmonious proportion; from top to bottom it is well shaped and well balanced. It may very properly be compared to the dome of Afrasyab, or it may justly be styled the palace of an emperor. One who saw its magnificence (or the poet Shaukat on seeing it) composed this tarikh, so elegant a rest-house makes even the flower garden envious."
As the building afforded such very scant accommodation, I proposed to make it not a general, but simply an architectural and antiquarian museum, arranging in it, in chronological series, specimens of all the different styles that have prevailed in the neighbourhood from the reign of the Indo-Scythian Ka nishka, in the century immediately before Christ, down to the Victorian period which would be illustrated in perfection by the building itself.
It cannot be denied that it is high time for some such institution to be established; for in an ancient city like Mathura interesting relics of the past, even when no definite search is being made for them, are constantly cropping up; and unless there is some easily accessible place to which they can be consigned for custody, they run an imminent risk of being no sooner found than destroyed. Inscriptions in particular, despite their exceptional value in the eyes of the antiquary, are more likely to perish than anything else, since they have no beauty to recommend them to the ordinary observer. Thus, as already mentioned, a pillar, the whole surface of which is said to have been covered with writing, was found in 1860 in making a road on the site of the old city wall. There was no one on the spot at the time who took any interest in such matters, and the thrifty engineer, thinking such a fine large block of stone ought not to be wasted, had it neatly squared and made into a buttress for a bridge. Another inscribed fragment, which had formed the base of a large seated statue, had been set up by a subordinate in the Public Works Department to protect a culvert on the high road through cantonments, from which position I rescued it. It bears the words Maharajasya Deva-putrasya Huvishkasya rajya sam. 50 he 3 di 2, and is of value as an unquestionably early example of the same symbol, which in the inscription of doubtful age given at page 138 is explained in words as denoting ‘ fifty.’ A third illustration of official indiffer ence to archaeological interests, though here the culprit was not an engineer, but the Collector himself, is afforded by the base of a pillar, which, after it had been accidentally dug up, was plastered and whitewashed and imbedded in one of the side pillars of the Tahsili gateway, where I re-discovered it, when the gateway was pulled down to improve the approach. The words are cut in bold clear letters, which for the most part admit of being deciphered with certainty, as follows: Ayam kumbhaka danam bhikshunam Suriyasya Buddha rakshitasya cha prahitakanam. Anantyam (?) deya dharmma pa……...nam. Sarvasa prahitakanam arya dakshitaye bhavatu. The purport of this would be: "This base is the gift of the mendicants Surya and Buddha-rakshita, prahita kas. A religious donation in perpetuity. May it be in every way a blessing to the prahitakas." A question has been raised by Professor Kern, with reference to another inscription, in which also a bhikshu was mentioned as a donor, on the score that a mendicant was a very unlikely person to contribute towards the expenses of any building, since, as he says, ‘ monks have nothing to give away, all to receive.’ But in this particular instance the reading and meaning are both unmistakeably clear, nor is the fact really at all inconsistent with Hindu usage. In this very district I can point to two large masonry tanks, costing each some thousands of rupees, which have been constructed by men dicants, bairagis, out of alms that they had in a long course of years begged for the purpose. The word prahitaka, if I am right in so reading it, is of doubtful signification. It might mean either ‘messenger’ or ‘committee-man;’ a com missioner or a commissionaire.
The other inscriptions have for the most part been already noticed in the preceding chapters, when describing the places where they were found.
As a work of art, the most pleasing specimen of sculpture is the Yasa-ditta statue of Buddha, noticed at page 115; but archaeologically the most curious object in the collection is certainly the large carved block which I discovered at Palikhera in the cold weather of 1873-74. On one side is represented a group of six persons, the principal figure being a man of much abdominal development, who is seated in complete nudity on a rock, or low stool,’ with a large cup in his hand. At his knee is a little child; two attendants stand at the back; and in the front two women are seen approaching, of whom the foremost bears a cup and the second a bunch of grapes. Their dress is a long skirt with a shorter jacket over it; shoes on the feet and a turban on the head. The two cups are curiously made; the lower end of the curved handle being attached to the bottom of the stem instead of the bowl. On the opposite side of the block the same male figure is seen in a state of helpless intoxication, supported on his seat from behind by two attendants, the one male, the other female. By his right knee stands the child as before, and opposite him to the left was apparently another boy, of somewhat larger growth, but this figure has been much mutilated. The male attendant wears a mantle, fastened at the neck by a fibula and hanging from the shoulder in vandyked folds, which are very suggestive of late Greek design.
The stone on which these two groups are carved measures three feet ten inches height, three feet in breadth and one foot four inches in thickness, and the top has been scooped out so as to form as it were a shallow circular basin. A block, of precisely the same dimensions and carved with two similar groups, was discovered somewhere near Mathura, the precise locality,not having been placed on record, by Colonel Stacy in the year 1836, who deposited it in the Calcutta museum, where it still is. His idea was that the principal figure represented Silenus, that the sculptors were Bactrian Greeks, and that their work was meant to be a tazza, or rather a pedestal for the support of a tazaa or large sacrificial vase. These opinions were endorsed by James Prinsep, and have prevailed to the present day. I believe them however to be erroneous, though not unnaturally suggest ed by a general resemblance to some such a picture as is given in Woolner’s Pygmalion of –

“

Weak-kneed brews puffing, on both sides
Upheld by grinning slaves, who plied the cup
Wherein two nymphs squeezed juice of dusky grapes.

"

Of the two groups on the Stacy stone one represents the drunkard after he has drained the cap, and is almost identical with that above described. The other exhibits an entirely different scene in the story, though some of the characters appear to be the same. There are four figures—two male and two female—standing under the shade of a tree with long dusters of drooping flowersThe first figure to the right is a female dressed in a long skirt and upper jacket, with a narrow scarf thrown over her arms. Her right hand is grasped by her male companion, who has his left arm round her neck. He is entirely naked, save for a very short pair of drawers barely reaching-to the middle of the thigh, and a shawl which may be supposed to hang loosely at his back, but in front shows only the ends tied loosely in a knot under his chin. Behind him and with her back to his back is another female dressed as the first, but with elaborate bangles covering nearly half the fore-arm. Her male companion seems to be turning away as if on the point of taking his leave. He wears light drawers reaching to the ankles and a thin muslin tunic, fitting close to the body and terminating a little below the knees. On the ground at the feet of each of the male figures is a covered cup.
As to the names of the personages concerned and the particular story which the sculptor intended to represent, I am not able to offer any suggestion. Probably, when Buddhist literature has been more largely studied, the legend thus illustrated will be brought to light. The general purport of the three scenes appear to me unmistakeable. In the first the two male conspirators are per suading their female companions to take part in the plot, the nature of the plot being indicated by the two cups at their feet. In the second the venerable ascetic has been seduced by their wiles into tasting the dangerous draught; one of the two cups is in his hand, the other is ready to follow. In the third one, of which there are two representations, the cups have been quaffed, and he is reeling from their effects.
Obviously all this has nothing to do with Silenus; the discovery of the second block, which supplies the missing scene in the drama, makes it quite clear that some entirely different personage is intended. The tazza theory may also be dismissed; for the shallow bason at the top of the stone seems to be nothing more than the bed for the reception of a round pillar. A sacrificial vase was a not uncommon offering among the Greeks; and if the carving had been shown to represent a Greek legend, there would have been no great improbability in supposing that the work had been executed for a foreigner who employed it in accordance with his own national usage. But in dedicating a cup to one of his own divinities, he would not decorate it with scenes from Hindu mythology ; while, on the other hand, the offering of a cup of such dimensions to any monastery or shrine on the part of a Buddhist is both unprecedented and intrinsically improbable.
Finally, as to the nationality of the artist. The foliage, it must be ob served, is identical in character with what is seen on many Buddhist pillars found in the immediate neighbourhood and generally in connection with figures of Maya Devi ; whence it may be presumed that it is intended to represent the sal tree, under which Buddha was born, though it is by no means a correct representa tion of that tree. The other minor accessories are also, with one exception, either clearly Indian, or at least not strikingly un-Indian: such as the earrings and bangles worn by the female figures and the feet either bare or certainly not shod with sandals: the one exception being the mantle of the male attendant in the drunken scene. Considering the local character of all the other accessories, I find it impossible to agree with General Cunningham in ascribing the work to a foreign artist, “one of a small body of Bactrian sculptors, who found employ ed among the wealthy Buddhists at Mathura, as in later days Europeans were employed ‘under the Mughal emperors.” The thoroughly Indian character of the details seem to me, as to Dr. Mitra, decisive proof that the sculptor was a native of the country; nor do I think it very strange that he should represent one of the less important characters as clothed in a modified Greek costume, since it is an established historical fact that Mathura was included in the Bactrian Empire, and the Greek style of dress cannot have been altogether unfamiliar to him. The artificial folds of the drapery were probably borrowed from what he sawon coins.