The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c7.306

v1.c7.306

It may be said, and very justly, that no amount of *a priori* argument can be of avail against positive facts; and if it can be proved that Greek artists under Alexandar, or under his successors, did teach the Indians the art of building in stone, or brick, and that no stone building had existed before that time, all disputation about it would be thrown away. But no such proof has as yet been afforded. The discussion has been carried on the premiss, taken for granted, that no Indo-Aryans could originate stone architecture, and the enquiry, therefore, has been, whence did they get the germs of the art? and, as in the minds of the disputants the idea of perfection of architecture is associated with the Greeks, and as by a strange coincidence the oldest Indian remains hitherto discovered are synchronous with the occupation of the country to the west of the Indus by the Greeks, a conclusion has been arrived at very much, as we believe, against true history. We hold that there is no proof whatever to show that the Indo-Aryans knew not stone architecture before they came in contact with the Greeks, and none, likewise, of their having learnt the art from them. We do not for a moment wish to question the fact that no authentic stone building has been met with of an age anterior to the time of Aśoka, but we cannot admit that the premiss necessarily leads to the conclusion that none existed before that period, or that the Greco-Bactrian theory alone can explain the circumstances of the case. The absence of remains does not *ipso facto* imply the anterior non-existence of a thing, and what is true in other cases is equally so as regards architecture, while the disappearance of substantial proof may be attributed to many causes, social, religious, political, and physical; which it is needless here to dilate upon. Moslem fanaticism, which, after repeated incursions, reigned supreme in India for six hundred years, devastating everything Hindu, and converting every available temple, or its materials, into a masjid, or a palace, or a heap of ruins, was alone sufficient to sweep away everything in the way of sacred buildings. To take for granted, therefore, the absence of remains as a proof of the anterier non-existence of building is to convert the negation of proof into a positive proof.