420 THE RUINS OF ENDERE CHAP. XXVII_
the enclosing ramparts cleared of sand. These excavations furnished interesting. data as to the methods of construction employed, but failed to throw much light on the original destination of the whole of this ruined settlement. The large brick building to the east of the temple, of which a portion left exposed by the sand is seen on p. 409, occupies with its massive walls of sun-dried bricks three sides of a quadrangle over 100 feet square. The dimensions of its rooms suggest public use ; but as, with the exception of a walled fireplace or two, they were found completely empty, there was nothing to prove the true character of the structure. Were these the quarters of a well-to-do monastic establishment which found it advisable to protect itself by walls and ramparts ? Or do the latter mark a fortified frontier-post which sheltered also a Buddhist temple ?
In a row of small rooms built of timber and plaster, which stood to the north of the shrine, there was one that appeared to have served as a little chapel. Its wall on one side was occupied by an elaborate fresco, which seems to have represented a Buddha surrounded by his former epiphanies. The wall had been broken at 5 feet from the ground, but the colours and outlines of the remaining part were in very fair preservation. In the same little room we found a well-executed small painting on wood, showing the familiar. figure of the elephant-headed Indian god of wisdom, Ganesha. To the south of the temple my excavations revealed a small double-storied building, of which, however, only the lower floor rooms remained. They had no doors, and were evidently underground apartments intended for use in the winter. The large fireplace found in one of them, with its elaborate mouldings, is seen in the photograph reproduced on p. 421.
The circumvallation, which originally consisted of a solid rampart of clay about 30 feet broad at the base and 17i feet high, had survived only in parts of the south face, flanking a gate, and in much decayed segments elsewhere. On the top of the ramparts ran a parapet of brickwork 5i feet high, and behind it a platform that seems to have been paved with bundles of brushwood, manifestly for the sake of
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