The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c16.s2.100.2

v2.c16.s2.100.2

The people of the surrounding country must have taken them away, and either destroyed them, or consecrated them as household Hindu gods. This process must have gone on for many centuries since the downfall of Buddhism and the occupation of the caves by Hindu ascetics, and it is rather remarkable that some images should have been extant fifty years ago, than that no traces of any should be found now. Mr. Stirling was not familiar with Buddhist images, for in his times researches into the antiquities of Buddhism had scarcely begun; and seeing that he mistook the images on the four sides of the model Chaityas of the Deva Sabhā for Jain deities,⁴³ it would not be unreasonable to conclude that some at least of the “quantity of images” he saw were Buddhist, those of the Nirvāṇa particularly, as we find even in our day an unmistakable Buddha image occupying the most prominent place in the Ananta Gumphā within fifty yards of the nearest Udayagiri cave. It is not known when the Jains first took possession of Khaṇḍagiri, but notwithstanding their close relationship with the Buddhists, they have never and nowhere been mindful Buddhist relics; on the contrary, as at Sārnāth and elsewhere, they have destroyed Buddhist shrines to raise temples for Pārasvanātha with their materials.