The Chola rose into power on the banks of the Cauvery, and to the northward of it, about the year 1000, though no doubt they existed as a small state about Conjeveram for some centuries before that time. The third, the Chera, were located in the southern Mysore country, and probably extending to the coast as early as the 4th or 5th century, and gradually worked their way northward, and became so powerful that there is reason for believing that during the dark ages of the north (750 to 950) their power extended to the Nerbudda, and it may be to them that we owe the Kylas and other excavations at Ellora, erected in the southern style about that time. They were, however, superseded, first by the Cholas, about A.D. 1000, and finally eclipsed by the Hoisala Bellalas, a century or so afterwards. These last became the paramount power in the south, till their capital--Hullabîd--was taken, and their dynasty destroyed by the Mahomedan, in the year 1310. With the appearance of the Mahomedans on the scene the difficulties of Indian chronology disappear in the south, as well as in the north. From that time forward the history of India is found in such works as those written by Ferishta or Abul Fazl, and has been abstracted and condensed in numerous works in almost every European language. There are still, it must be confessed, slight discrepancies and difficulties about the sequence of some events in the history of the native principalities. These, however, are not of such importance as at all to affect, much less to invalidate, any reasoning that may be put forward regarding the history or affinities of any buildings, and this is the class of evidence which principally concerns what is written in the following pages. SCULPTURES.