" डेट्रांड-ख्वभs । feifrittee C-"The beauty of this elaborate piece proved to it a more fatal enemy than time itself, and tempted English antiquarians to try to remove it by sea to the Museam Calcutta. A grant of public money was obtained ; but it sufficed only to drag the massive block a couple of hundred yard, where it now lies, quite apart from the temple, and as far as ever from the shore. The builders : 痒 岑 举 had excavated it in the quarries of the Hill States, and carried it by a land journey, across Swamps and unbridged rivers, for a distance of eighty miles." অশীতি বৎসর পূর্বে ষ্টার্লিঙ্গ সাহেব কনারক দর্শন করিয়া যে মনােজ্ঞচিত্র পাঠকবগের সমক্ষে রাখিয়া গিয়াছেন। বর্তমান সময়ে তাহাও দেখিতে পাওয়া যায় না। আমরা ইংরেজীভাষাভিজ্ঞ পাঠকবর্গের তৃপ্তি ও কৌতুহল নিবৃত্তির জন্য এস্থানে ষ্টালিঙ্গ সাহেবের বর্ণনা হইতে কিয়দংশ উদ্ধত করিয়া দিলাম। তিনি ১৮২০ খ্ৰীষ্টাব্দে কনারক দর্শন করেন, তিনি লিখিয়াছেন- ‘The skill and labour of the best artists seem to have been reserved for the finely-polished slabs of chlorite which line and decorate the outer faces of the doorways. The whole of the sculpture on these figures, comprising men and animals, foilage and arabesque patterns, is executed with a degree of taste, propriety, and freedom, which would stand a comparison with Simc (four best secimens of Gothic architectural ornament. The workmanship remains, too, as perfect as if it had just conne from the chisel of the sculptor, owing to the extreme hardness and durability of the stone. A triangular niche over each doorway was once filled with a figure cut in alt.relievo, emblematic of the deity of the place, being that of a youth in a sitting posture, holding in each hand a stalk of the true lotus, the expanded flowers of which are turned towards him. Each architrave has, as usual, the Nava-graha, or nine Brahmnical planets, very finely sculptured in alto-relievo. Five 蟾” 8&
