Photo 1000/6(679)

Henry Cousens, Revised list of antiquarian remains in the Bombay Presidency ... originally compiled by J. Burgess (Bombay: 1897), p. 108: 'In the Patel's garden are some very curiously carved memorial stones, with sea-fights sculptured upon them. These are set up in a row. There are 6, five large and one small. They represent a battle upon land in which mail-clad elephants take part. Three are sculptured with the representation of a sea-fight shewing the vessels approaching one another in long well ordered lines and also mixed up together in the fight itself.' The photograph is reproduced in Henry Cousens, The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts (Archaeological Survey of India, vol. XLII, New Imperial Series, Calcutta, 1926), plate 153, and described, p. 143: 'There is an isolated group of seven similar stones, which are even more interesting, near the village of Borivali, in Salsette island, north of Bombay, which, though not coming within thew boundaries of the Kanarese districts, might well be included in this account...They were probably set up during the time of the Silaharas of the Konkan. They are memorials of heroes who fell in some great battle which took place partly upon land and partly on sea. Upon some of the stones are long rows of galleys approaching each other in well-formed alignment; in others they are mixed up in the general engagement, archers and swordsmen fighting each other from deck to deck. The long banks of oars make the vessels look strangely like old Roman biremes, and the urns and drapery which surmount these stones give them a further flavour of classical times. In the land battle, as depicted, are seen elephants clothed with coverings of mail armour. Unfortunately the lines of inscription which were engraved on these are, with the exception of a few traces, completely effaced.'

See also print 681 for a close view of two of the stones. For another copy of this print, see Photo 120 (3).