Joseph David Freedone Melik Beglar

“ Crossing the pleasing Sarayu, and seeing the whole of the eastern Koçaladesa, they marched through Mithila and Malla and crossed the Charmanvati river; then crossing the Ganges and the Sona, these three brave men of unwearied courage, clothed in cloth of the Kusa grass, turning eastwards, arrived at the boundary of the Magadha kingdom. ”

“ Judging from the style of sculpture, and from the shallowness of the mouldings of the temple shewn by the loose carved stones, I should ascribe it to a post-Muhammadan period.
On the north banks of the tank the rock shelves down to the water; it is covered with fragments of stones—cut, rough, and sculptured; the carvings are more elaborate and carved stones are more numerous; the ruins are of more than one temple; one large temple certainly occupied a wide, flat space on the spur, but there must have been others and smaller ones in the vicinity. ”

“ The mandapa had three entrances, of which the north one is now closed; a lotus is sculptured over the outer entrance, but the object of worship inside is a lingam; the sanctum is surmounted, not by the usual graceful tower, but by an almost straight-sided spire, the native ugliness of which is heightened by its surface being cut up into seven spaces by plain projecting bands. The roof of the mahamandapa is a low pyramid, like that of the Kalyâneswari temple, or of temple No. 9, divided in three steps by bands and recessed mouldings. ”

“ The country at and for several miles about this place, and between these two rivers, shows the unmistakeable traces of having once been the bed of a mighty river, much mightier than the Punpun; from here it flowed in the bed of the present Murhar river till it finally joined the Ganges at Fatuha.
In parts of the bed of the Murhar river, and on its banks for some distance inland, are found rounded pebbles, precisely similar to the well-known pebbles of the Son. So close is the resemblance, that it has struck every one who has given any thought to it. ”

“ It is hardly possible that all traces of the grandeur of the city should have so completely disappeared, if the city stood where modern Patna now stands; but if the Ganges has swallowed it, the complete disappearance is accounted for.
Greek writers mention that the walls of Palibothra were of wood. It most probably was so then, but the clear evidence of Fa Hian and of the Mudra Râkshasa shows that Pâṭaliputra was not a wooden city in their time. ”

“ The parrot was an extraordinary one, as he would go daily to India’s court and bring the news of what took place there to his mistress; the pig was the leader of all the pigs in the country; and the cow was no other than the famous "Surabhi." One day the parrot told his mistress that Indra had given orders that, during the approaching rainy season, it should rain nowhere in the district except on the sterile hills and stony valleys of Râjgir. ”

“ Oh, King of Chedi! the Chedi country abounds in wealth and grain, and is suited for the habitation of animals, very clean, deserving of being cherished like heaven, very beautiful; the land possessed of fertility, possessed of various gems of value—the land of that country is full of wealth; therefore go and live there: the people of this country are pious, always happy and learned, [2] to say nothing of other occasions no one here, even in jest, utters a falsehood; the sons do not separate from the fathers, and always remain devoted in obedience to their religious preceptors. ”

“ A traveller, on arriving at one of these fortunate spots, which was generally either a well or the banks of a tank, had only to make known his wants, when Chán Saudágar’s vessels of gold and silver would float up and allow themselves to be used by the traveller, who had, however, scrupulously to return them when done with; but men are covetous, and at each of the places where I have heard the legend, some unlucky man was too weak to resist the temptation of appropriating them, and since then the miracle has ceased. ”

“ Odd fragments of mouldings are also seen in places where they have no business, clearly showing that the temple is built of materials from an older temple; the architrave of the outermost entrance lies on the ground, and has a lotus sculptured on its surface; the carving and scroll work of the doorway are all very shallow. ”

“ If we assume that the cave as we see it now is as Buddha used it, then we must be prepared to grant an indefinite extension of time to the introduction of the art of stone-cutting in India; for as existing records do not make any mention of the cave having been especially prepared for Buddha, the chisel-cut cave must have been in existence before, and must have been simply appropriated by Buddha, so that it may have been cut in the time of the first of the 24 Buddhas, for all that we can prove to the contrary. ”

“ Afsand is a very small village 3 miles to the south by a little east of Párvati; here are several ancient remains, the principal of which is a high conical mound, the ruin apparently of a temple; there are also several statues, but mostly Brahmanical, among them a large varaha, the finest in Bengal I have yet seen, and a few, a very few, Buddhist statues. There was once an important inscription here which was removed by Captain Kittoe, and which he sent back to be replaced here, or rather to be let into a pillar or pedestal here, but it now exists no longer. ”

“ The principal object of interest here is the masjid. This is avowedly built on the site of a Hindu temple, and under the great flooring slabs in the centre of the central arch is buried, so says tradition, the mighty Hilsa Deo, sealed down with the sacred seal of a local saint. Hilsá Deo was a powerful magician, and was overcome with difficulty. It is possible that the principal statue of the temple is buried here to be "trodden daily under foot by the faithful," but of course it is quite out of the question to try and ascertain this by actual excavation. ”

“ The wild hills of Rajauli are in their way deserving of mention; the seven Rishis are said to have lived on them, and particular peaks are named after one or other of the saints; of these the most interesting is Singar Peak, so named from Sringi Rishi; there is a rough stone platform on the top with some shapeless boulders as objects of worship; a fair is held annually at the foot, and devotees toil up the steep ascent to the top to pay their devotions.
A fair is held annually also at Ektâra, at the Mahabar hill near Satgaon. ”

“ The temples are built of a variety of materials, brick and stone, both cut and rough; the cut stone is roughly dressed, not smoothed; there are traces of an old brick inclosure about the principal temple, which is situated on a high mound.
There are numerous fragments of statues of no special interest. Lingams innumerable are to be seen at every step. The long lane or road leading from the tank to the temple is lined by semi-nude jogis, and the tanks are crowded by pilgrims, male and female, in gay dresses, busy washing away old sins and clearing the way for fresh ones. ”

“ The oldest dated temple in Bishanpur is known as the Malleswar temple, the temple of Bishanpur, which has long been regarded as the oldest in Bishanpur, and as dating back to near the beginning of the Malla era, chiefly on the strength of the inscription of which Bishanpur enjoys its fame as a very ancient city ”

“ The Punpun is a small river which discharges a small sluggish stream at all seasons except the rains, when it is swelled to a great size by rain and by the spill-waters of the Son (which breaking through the embanked road now running along its eastern banks, and pouring through the openings left in it, sends part of its spill-waters down its old bed to this day) , and would hardly have deserved mention at all in the meagre account (if a bare mention can be so called) which the Buddhist writings furnish of the stûpa over the measuring vessel. ”

“ This citadel or kila is now the highest spot within modern Patna, and is a confused mass of ruined houses and brickbat heaps, presenting an aspect of desolation which, far from being relieved, is only aggravated by the existing houses yet inhabited, but mostly in a ruinous condition. No friendly vegetation hides the naked rawness of the ruins there. ”

“ The two ranges of walls thus extended along the converging crests of the two ranges of hills which enclose on the north and the south the eastern Báwan Gangá defile; the spot where the walls cross the defile to complete the circuit being just above the Gidhadwar cave, where Nature has so disposed the spurs of the two ranges that they meet, and the stream rushes down the steep barrier in cascades and rapids to join the Pamchana. Art has taken advantage of the natural features to construct a dam or rather to carry the wall across here, forming, as it were, a dam. ”

“ At the east end of the village are two temples, one curiously enveloped in the roots of a bar tree; a few fragments of mouldings lying about show very bold outlines, but the greater portion of the mouldings are shallow; all these temples appear to have been built of the materials of older ones, and, from their shallow ornamentation, I ascribe them to the period of Mân Singh, Akbar’s Viceroy. ”

“ Siláo is a large village about 3 miles from Baragaon. It is at the present day noted for a kind of native sweetmeat, and for its parched rice, and from personal knowledge I can bear out in regard to these items the fame it enjoys. It is, however, not devoid of objects of interest, as there are two tombs and a masjid with numerous inscriptions in Persian and Arabic characters. The masjid is of the ordinary kind, without cloisters attached; it is built of stone and mortar, and the floor in front is paved with stone. The whole of the stone was derived from Hindu buildings. ”

“ The present great road from Gaya to Bânkipur necessarily follows a different line; the shifting of the head-quarters of the district from Patna to Bânkipur made it a necessity to select a new line; but with Patna for the capital, the old great road, though not very pleasant for the portion between Patna and Telâda, was no worse than any other that could have been chosen, while beyond Telâda, following closely as it does the high banks of the Nairanjana or Phalgu river, is the line marked out by Nature herself. ”

“ One day a party of hunters, who were looking for game in the forest, saw the child, and carried him off, notwithstanding the resistance of Kapilá Gai, to Páwápur; when he grew up, the people made him Májhi (chief of a clan or village) , and finally, when in want of a king, determined to elect him, and he was accordingly elected king of Pargana Chaurasi (Sikhar bhum) ; they built him the Pachet fort, and named him Jatá Rájá: on the death of the miraculous cow, her tail was found and carried to the Rájá, who used it as an ensign, tying it to his horse ”

“ Near Belá are several remains, about a mile and a half east of the dâk bungalow; these consist of various statues, mostly Brahmnanical, but some Buddhist also; and of a lingam and argha, which are fabled to have resisted all attempts at dislodgment for conveyance elsewhere. A fragment of a halo round the head of a Buddha with the beginning of the Buddhist creed was found by me in one of the recently set up earthen lingams. In the vicinity are other temples, none of any antiquity, and containing nothing of interest. One temple contains a statue of the skeleton goddess Kâli in black stone. ”

“ The hill is densely covered with scrub, and ruins of a temple or temples may exist, unknown to those who acted as my guides.
Tradition calls the votive chaityas, which in form are conoidal frusta, and resemble the native dhole or drums, petrified dhols, and relates that, on a certain occasion, musicians and their instruments, while celebrating a wedding, were converted into stone; what has become of the musicians no one pretends to be able to say. ”

“ The object of worship inside is the figure of a fish lying flat, serving as an argha to five lingam holes cut in it. This sculpture is especially interesting, as proving that the fish is essentially a representation of the female power of nature—a character which it hears in the mythology of other nations, but which appears to have been overlooked, or forgotten, in Indian mythology, where it, and a similar symbol, the tortoise, are dissociated from the lingam. ”

“ BISHANPUR.
Bishanpur is famed as an old place, and certainly contains very many temples and other old remains, but their age is not such as to merit detailed notice of them. They are almost all built in the Lower Bengal style, with curved roof lines, and the ornamentation consists generally of sculptured or moulded tile-work. Some of these are very fine, and stand out the weather very well; they consist chiefly of scenes from the lives of Rama or the Pândus, but principally of Krishna, to whom, or to whose mistress, most of the temples are dedicated ”

“ The sanctum is roofed internally by tunnel vaults, not semicircular, but of arcs meeting at the crown in a ridge; the arch sheeting is entirely of brick cut to shape in the lowest course of bricks; in the arch sheeting, at the springing, the bricks are placed, not as usual with their beds horizontal, but on their edges with the beds vertical; over this row of vertical bricks are 8 or 10 courses of bricks, with their beds horizontal, or rather with their beds slightly inclined to the horizon, as they should properly be in a true arch. ”

“ The boulder is near a small mango tope and far from any village. Tradition makes it the residence of Sita during her exile; it was here that her son Lava was born, and Kuça manufactured by the sage Valmiki; the sculpture inside representing what I strongly suspect to be Buddha with two attendants on two sides, as in the much larger and fine sculpture at Kispa, which is said to represent Sita and her two sons, although the statue is not female; a second piece of sculpture is said to be Lachman; there is besides a Devi on a lion, Pârvati no doubt ”

“ If they learnt it by the first mode, we should expect to see the remains of a period when the art was in its rude infancy, and we should expect that the energy which brought the art so high would advance it further. I need not add that we have not a single authentic example of Indian stone-cutting in its earlier stages of progress, nor have we any material improvement in the art over what it was in Asoka's period. But if they learnt it from artists of another nation, we should expect no remains shewing the ruder stages of development of the art ”

“ A curse of some kind has converted his soldiers into stone, but he is not dead; when the course of the curse has been run, he and his people will be restored to life. I could not ascertain when or why or by whom the curse was pronounced; the people have only a vague idea that a curse does hang over him.
From the Silabhadra monastery, which I identify with the Kauwa-dol temple, Hwen Thsang went 40 or 50 li south-west to Gaya. The actual distance of the north end of Gaya from here is 12 miles ”

“ When within about 30 feet of the ground, vegetation begins to shew itself, and thence the slope is a gentle one in the reverse direction till it meets the plain; the outline, therefore, of the entire hill here is a curve of a double flexure, and is singularly beautiful. ”

“ The walls which carry the inner vault are made just thick enough to do this, and no more, and this is the only reason I can see which can be assigned for making the walls, carrying the vault, of the thickness they actually are. This done, the sanctum becomes at once again a square, and as a crucial proof that the change which has been imagined was actually made at this time, is the circumstance that the lingam now in the temple, and which doubtless is the one set up by the orders of King Ṣasângka, occupies the exact centre, as it should do, of the reduced square. ”

“ If now we suppose the cave at the foot of the mass of rocks to be Buddha’s meditation cave, we have to north-west of it at 50 feet the other cave which contains the sculptures, and about 100 feet off also to north-west the great block of stone mentioned above. The cave is quite far enough to be Ananda’s cave, as the loose measurement of 30 paces may mean anything from 50 to 90 feet; but the great stone is, perhaps, the real spot, although it is not a cave, for it does not appear to me quite certain that Ananda’s meditation place was a cave. ”

“ Subsequently Râma, pursuing Râvana, passed that way and worshipped the lingam.
Siva at last was pleased with the untiring devotion of Baiju Gwâla, and offered to give him any gift he should ask. The independent gwala replied—"What can you give me? I have enough to eat and drink. I want nothing, but if you are determined to grant me a gift, grant that henceforth my name should precede yours." From that day, the lingam known as Râvaneswara came to be known as Baijnâth.
A few miles to the north-east of Baijâth is Harlájhuri; here are a few modern temples and fragments of statues ”