The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.164.2

v1.c9.164.2

Its material, the mottled red sandstone, is the same which Huviṣka used in the construction of his great monastery at Mathurā over nineteen hundred years ago, and which the Moghols employed in the erection of their forts at Delhi, Agra, and Allahabad. The Hindu fort of Gwalior and the ancient temple of Govindajī at Vṛndāvana, are built entirely of this stone, and innumerable Hindu and Paṭhān edifices along the banks of the Yamunā attest the fact of its being an Indian material, and the sculpture under notice have been made in India. But a *tazza*, as an article of decoration, as far as there are means of judging, was [ 69 ] unknown in ancient India, and it may therefore be accepted as a proof, as far as such a proof can go, of the presence in India of foreign artists. The subject of representation on one side (obverse) of the stem of the *tazza* is a pot-bellied, stout man, seated in a wine-befuddled style on a rock, or a low stool, with his hands resting on an attendant standing on each side. “The drooping of the head, the lips, and the powerless state of the limbs,” says Col. Stacy, “give an extremely accurate representation of a drunken man.” For dress he has only a *dhuti*, negligently wrapped round his loins below the abdomen, leaving the paunch uncovered and projecting. His feet are partially mutilated; one leg is raised, the other is hanging. Round his head he wears a chaplet of angular-lobed leaves.