National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

windows of the north wall clearly show that it dates considerably farther back
than the temples by its side and behind it. The same applies also to what
little is left of an ante-room or porch which appears to have faced this hall on
the east.

Cunningham already had rightly recognized the remains of a far older struc-
ture in a large ruined base, F, which rises in a field to the east of the temple
group and at a distance of about 30 yards from the foot of the lowest of the
terrace walls below it (Fig. 13). This base, which in Cunningham's time
still measured 68½ by 56½ feet, has since suffered considerably in size and state
of preservation through depredations for building material. But its south side
still shows the design dividing it 'into a number of small panels or recesses by
broad pilasters after the style of the tope basement at Mānikyāla', as described
by him.

A recent clearing done for the Archaeological Department, under which the
ruins have now passed as a 'Protected Monument',⁹ has revealed behind this
wall of the base an earlier stuccoed facing, also decorated with pilasters but
here plain and lacking the brackets seen on the outside. It appeared to me evi-
dent that the base had obviously been enlarged at some subsequent period
and that it had once belonged to a Buddhist stūpa. The care which has been taken
to clear the ground around for cultivation sufficiently explains why nothing is
left now of the debris which would otherwise have remained of the fallen dome
and drum of the stūpa once rising above the base. The numerous large
mansions erected around the sacred pool by Hindu chiefs and other wealthy
pilgrims must have been largely built with materials abstracted from the ruined
structures of the site.

I have thought this brief review of the ruins still to be seen at Ketās desirable
as they afford convincing proof that the site retains remains older than Hsüan-
tsang's time and of a type pointing to a place of importance. Of the large base
F just referred to it appears to me highly probable that it formed part of
the 'Aśoka stūpa' which the pilgrim found already in a state of decay. On the
massive terraces rising above this ruin may have stood the buildings of that
Buddhist monastery which at the time of his visit was already quite deserted.
'Continuity of local worship' would help to account for the use made of the same
spot for Hindu shrines during the centuries immediately following.

But for definite proof of the identification of the capital of Siṁhapura with