The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c8.38

v1.c8.38

and yet its presence on edifices, which have nothing else that could bear the most distant resemblance to foreign archetypes, precludes the idea of the model of these jars having been imported from Greece or Italy. The intercourse which formerly existed between the nations of the East and the West, could easily account for the importation of *amphorae*, and other Grecian vessels to India; but it is impossible to suppose that sacerdotal bigotry would so far yield to aesthetic considerations, as to permit a foreign wine-cup to crown the spires of its holiest temples. I am disposed, therefore, to attribute it to an effort to improve upon the ordinary water jar of the period, resulting in an ornamented specimen of the ancient *ghaḍā*. A well-filled pitcher, on the top of a thatched roof is an important measure of precaution, which people of this country seldom forget, and that it should be reproduced in stone as an ornament among a people, the most conservative of conservatives, is by no means extraordinary; and that in its transit from earth to stone, it should be improved [32] and embellished is but natural, and a matter of course. In Orissa, the jar is never repeated, but in the North-Western Provinces, where the people carry on their heads two, three and sometimes four pots of different sizes, the *kalaśa* is repeated two or three times on their temples.