Note 194 — Chapter VI · VIHARAS,[158] OR MONASTERIES.

Eight large lithographic plates illustrating these caves will be found in my work on the ‘Rock-cut Temples of India,’ 1843. In 1864 I published a small volume containing fifty-eight photographic illustrations of the same series. Reductions of some of the more important frescoes, copied by Major Gill, were fortunately published by Mrs. Speir in her ‘Life in Ancient India,’ in 1856; and since then Mr. Griffith, of the School of Arts at Bombay, has been employed to recover, as far as it can now be done, the frescoes destroyed in the Crystal Palace fire. If he is successful, these curious paintings may still be made available for the history of art in India. It is feared, however, that the means taken by Major Gill to heighten their colour before copying them, and the destructive tendencies of British tourists, have rendered the task to a great extent a hopeless one.