The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.48.3

v1.c10.48.3

If the arguments regarding the age of the Udayagiri caves, elsewhere adduced, be tenable, the figure is over two and twenty centuries old, and at that period, the Buddhists evidently knew the use of made dresses. The habit is so entirely Indian in its character, that none will venture to spy in it any resemblance to the *chiton*, the *chlamys* or such other vestments as the soldiers of Alexander brought to India,³¹ even if it were possible to suppose that it would be at once imitated in stone many hundreds of miles away from the place where it was first exhibited, and the inveterately conservative Indians could be imagined to have resigned, against the common instinct of civilized man in every part of the world, their national attire at the first sight of a foreign garb. The tunic may be compared to that of the Assyrian foot soldier, but its sleeves are long and come down to the wrist, whereas the Assyrian sleeve, as far as can be made out from Layard's plates, never reached below the elbow, leaving the forearm bare. The boots are particularly worthy of notice, as nothing of the kind has anywhere else been seen in India of so old a date. Three warriors at Amarāvati are habited very nearly in the same way, but without the boots. For ready reference I have copied [ 83 ] as much of two of them as is visible in Mr. Fergusson's plates. (Illustrations Nos. 90 and 91).