SITUATION

The group of Buddhist remains at Jauliāñ is perched on the top of a hill some 300 ft. in height and situated rather less than a mile north-east of Mohṛā Morādu and about half that distance from the village of Jauliāñ. The monuments in the Jauliāñ group are more highly ornamented and in a still better state of preservation than those at Mohṛā Morādu; for many of them had only just been erected and the rest but newly repaired and redecorated, when they were overtaken by the catastrophe which resulted in their burial. On the other hand, the decorations of these buildings at Jaulāñ are not of so high a quality as those at Mohṛā Morādu. There is less breadth in the treatment of the reliefs, less vitality and movement in the figures, less subtlety in their modelling, and less delicacy in their technique.

DATE

The original foundation of these buildings is to be ascribed to the Kushān period, in the second century A.D., and their destruction to the latter part of the fifth century A.D. During this period the capital of Taxila was in Sirsukh (the earlier cities of Sirkap and the Bhiṛ Mound had then been abandoned), and we can well understand how attractive this site at Jauliāñ must have been to the members of the Buddhist saṅgha eager to enjoy the advantages of its dominating position on the hill-top, with its wide expanse of view, its calm seclusion, and last but not least, its cool and dustless air, but no less eager to keep closely in touch with their followers in the great city where their daily alms would be begged. One drawback only would there be to the situation, namely, the difficulty of carrying up their water supply; but this was a difficulty which does not seem to have deterred either Buddhists or Jains from establishing themselves in remote and sometimes almost in-accessible places. In any case, the difficulty in ancient days was not as great as now; for at the southern foot of the hill there were, until a generation ago, the ruins of several old wells, no doubt contemporary with the monastery, which have now been closed in and ploughed over by the cultivators.