The excavations of Elephanta are very near Bombay, and the trip in the bay by boat to the island where they are located is a delightful one.  The deplorable state in which these temples now exist, with their broken columns and statues, detracts much from their interest.  The temples of Ajunta, perhaps the most interesting of all, are easier of access, and are situated 250 miles from Bombay and far from the railway station at Pachora, where it is necessary to leave the cars.  Here an ox cart has to be obtained, and thirty miles have to be traveled over roads that are almost impassable.  It takes the oxen fifteen hours to reach the bungalow of Furdapore, the last village before the temples, and so it is necessary to purchase provisions.  In these wild and most picturesque places, the Hindoos cannot give you a dinner, even of the most primitive character.  It was formerly thought that the subterranean temples of India were of an extraordinary antiquity.

The Hindoos still say that the gods constructed these works, but of the national history of the country they are entirely ignorant, and they do not, so to speak, know how to estimate the value of a century.  The researches made by Mr. Jas. Prinsep between 1830 and 1840 have enlightened the scientific world as to the antiquity of the monuments of India.  He succeeded in deciphering the Buddhist inscriptions that exist in all the north of India beyond the Indus as far as to the banks of the Bengal.  These discoveries opened the way to the work done by Mr. Turnour on the Buddhist literature of Ceylon, and it was thus that was determined the date of the birth of Sakya Muni, the founder of Buddhism.  He was born 625 B.C. and his death occurred eighty years later, in 543.  It is also certain that Buddhism did not become a true religion until 300 years after these events, under the reign of Aoska.  The first subterranean temples cannot therefore be of a greater antiquity.  Researches that have been made more recently have in all cases confirmed these different results, and we can now no longer doubt that these temples have been excavated within a period of fourteen centuries.

Dasaratha, the grandson of Aoska, first excavated the temples known under the name of Milkmaid, in Behar (Bengal), 200 B.C., and the finishing of the last monument of Ellora, dedicated by Indradyumna to Indra Subha, occurred during the twelfth century of our era.

[Illustration:  FIG. 1.—­FACADE OF THE TEMPLE OF PANDU LENA.]

We shall speak first of the temples of Pandu Lena, situated in the vicinity of Nassik, near Bombay.  These are less frequented by travelers, and that is why I desired to make a sketch of them (Fig. 1).  The church of Pandu Lena is very ancient.  Inscriptions have been found upon its front, and in the interior on one of the pillars, that teach us that it was excavated by an inhabitant of Nassik, under the reign of King Krishna, in honor of King Badrakaraka, the fifth of the dynasty of Sunga, who mounted the throne 129 B.C.