TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, SARAN, AND GHAZ1PUK IN 1877-78-79 and go.. A, C. L. CARLLEYLE, FIRST ASSISTANT, ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY. VOLUME XXII. ’‘What is aimed at is an accurate description, illustrated by plans, measurements, drawings or photographs, and by copies of inscriptions, of such remains as most deserve notice, with the h^gtory of them so far as it may be traceable, and a record of the traditions that are preserved regarding them.”—L ord Canning. “‘What the learned world demand of us in India is to be quite certain of our data, to place the monumental record before them exactly as it now exists, and to interpret it faithfully and literally.”— James Prinsep. CALCUTTA: PRINTED EY THE SUPERINTENDENT OF GOVERNMENT PRINTING, INDIA. 1885. PREFACE. I N this volume Mr. Carlleyle has followed up his discovery of the site of Kapilavastu, the birth-place of Buddha, by the identification of several other important sites in the early his¬ tory of Buddhism. Amongst these is RAmnagar, the site of the famous Stupa of Rdmagrdma, from which the N 4 gas are said to have filched the tooth of Buddha, that is now believed to be preserved in Ceylon. Other identifications, which appear to me to be certain, are the following:— i. The “ Anoma River,” over which Prince SAkya Sinha leaped his horse Chandaka, with the Kddawd Nala, or “ Leaped River.” 2. The three StCipas of “ Chandaka’s Return,” the “ Cut Hair,” and the “ Changed Garments,” with three mounds in the neighbourhood of the river. 3. The “ City of the Moriyas” with the ruins of “ Rdj- dh&ni,” an old site in the midst of the jungle to the south of Gorakhpur. 4. Discovery of the colossal statue of Buddha after the Nirv&na, at Kasia (the ancient Kusinagara), with an inscription on its pedestal of the Gupta period. This statue must therefore be the identical one that was seen by the Chinese pilgrim in January, A.D. 637, when he visited the scene of Buddha’s death. The statue was found in an oblong chamber, which had originally been covered with bricks placed edge to edge after the old fashion of the Hindu arch. The Gupta characters of the inscription show that this style of arch was in use as early as the 4th or 5th century A.D. 5. Discovery of another inscribed pillar of Asoka at R4m- purwa in the Tarai, at the foot of the Nepal hills, 32 miles to the north of Betiya. The inscription is »UWS i'ny • /iv " PREFACE. letter for letter, the same as that on the two pillars near Betiya. It is now lying prostrate with part of the inscription under water. In its fall the capital was broken, and only the lower part of the bell was found attached to the shaft. This portion had been preserved by a massive copper bolt, by which the capital was attached to the shaft. The bolt is of cast copper, 24-} inches in length, 13J inches in cir¬ cumference in the middle, and iof inches at each end. There are several marks chiselled and dotted on each flat end of the bolt. The fact that this bolt is of copper seems to me to point out very clearly that the Hindus had already discovered the destructive property of iron when used as a fastening for stones. I have long held the opinion that the Hindus knew and practised the art of stone-cutting at least two centuries before the time of Asoka. Indeed the very name of Taxila, or Takshasila-Nagara, the “city of cut-stone” buildings, proves that the art was known and used before the time of Alexander. At present we know of no Indian inscriptions earlier than the reign of Asoka; but I find it absolutely impossible to believe that the beautifully finished letters of Asoka’s pillar inscriptions could have leaped ready-formed, like Minerva, from the head of any person. They must have been preceded by a ruder alphabet, which has been lost owing to the almost universal use of wood in early times. The wooden palaces and wooden walls of Palibothra have perished long ago ; but I do not despair of our finding hereafter some little coin that may be of an earlier date. In fact I already possess several coins of an earlier date than those of the Sungas, with the name of Gupta on them, preceded either by Chandra or Bhadra, the first letter alone being indistinct. Mr. Carlleyle’s remarks about the Asylum and Drona Stupas seem to me to merit careful consideration, and I pro¬ pose to examine the question of their sites over again before I leave India. A. CUNNINGHAM, Major-General ., Director-General, Archaeological Survey. CONTENTS. General Summary of Explorations in 1876-77 and 1877-78. No. x« Ramagr&ma 2 Matieya , 3. Anonia . 4< Three St&pas . . ♦ 5. City of the Moriyas . 6 . Rficlrapur 7. The Bar Tree Forests and Mithabel 8. Bhopa .... 9. Kusinagara io f Pawa .... 11. Laoriya Naonadgarh REPORT FOR i877-78. 12. Mounds near Laoriya 13. Mounds near Harhi . 14. Janki Kot, or Janki Garh . 15. New Edict Pillar of Asoka . REPORT FOR 1878-79. 16. Concluding notice of the Gorakhpur District . 57 17. Dighwa Dubaoli, Saran Dis¬ trict .... 72 *8. Cheran, S&ran District „ 73 No. 19. Na-lo-yeti, or Nar&yana— (Narainpur) . PAOE 75 20, The Asylum StCipa, conver¬ sion of man-eating Demons 76 21. The Drona Stftpa, or Kum- bhan Sfftpa 77 22. The Dharmaranya Dhamaoli) at Baliya (and 81 23. Other ancient sites ori Ganges between B and Ghazipur 1 the aliya 86 24. Capital of the Kingdom of “ Chen-chu,” or " Lord of Battles ” . 88 REPORT FOR 1879-80, 25. Ghazipur . 94 26. Old sites to the west of Ghazipur 95 27. Masaon Dih, Joharganj, and Krelulendrapura 95 28. Chandraoti, or Chandravati 104 29. Chiraya-Kot 105 30. G&rha-ka-Kot . * 105 31. Khaira Dih . 106 32. Bairaht, or Vairahta , . 107 33. Hingtar, or Hengutar, Dhanapur . ' . and 117 PAGE 2 2 3 5 7 9 *3 15 16 29 35 35 47 49 51 PLATES. Pages of -—*- text in which referred to, I.-—Map of Baliya, Saran and North-Western Bihar . Passim, II.—Ramagrama ......... i III. —Kusinagara Stfipa and Monastery.16 IV. — Do. Inscriptions . . ..... ib. V. —Pawa (Chetiya and Fazilnagar 'Stfipa) . . . . 2 g VI. —Asoka Pillar—map showing site of Rampurwa . . , 51 VII.— Do. lying in excavation ..... ib . VIII,—-D harm aranya and Baliya (map) ..... 81 IX.—Masaon-dih (Krelulendra) map . . . . . 95 X. — Do. map ........ ib XI.—Garha-ka-kot, map ........ 105 XII.—Khaira-dih, old fort. 106 XIII. —Bairant, map * . , . . . , . igj XIV. —Map of Baliya and Ghazipur to Benares . . . . 94 ARCHEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. A General Summary of the Archceological explorations made during the years 1876-yy and 187J-J8, by A, C. CARL- LEYLE, Assistant , Archceological Survey of India. FTER completing my identifications, surveys, and inves- ^ tigations concerning the various sites of historical or traditional interest, in the neighbourhood of, or in any way connected with, Kapilavastu (which had already previously been identified by me with “ Bhuila”), I next proceeded thence, in an east and south-easterly direction, to follow up the further route pursued by the Chinese traveller Huen Thsang, who, after he had terminated his visit to Kapilavastu and its sacred neighbourhood, next proceeded in a south-easterly direction to pay his adorations at the various spots where Buddha had passed or rested, on the way, after he had left his native place in order to enter upon the life of an ascetic or at places where there were shrines containing relics of Buddha. The places or localities which had to be discovered or identified on this route were — I.—R&magr&ma, where one of the eight original portions of the actual relics of Buddha was enshrined in a stftpa. .2.—Maneya, an ancient city, situated in a district called Anu-vaineya (or V&n&ya), which (as I shall show) means along the V&na River. It was near this place that Buddha leaped across the Anoma River. 3.—The Anoma River, which Buddha leaped his horse across. VOL. XXII. B 2 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, 4 . —The three stftpas of Chandaka’s Return, of the Cut- Hair, and of the Changed Garments, which were situ¬ ated some short distance beyond, or on the left or east bank of, the Anoma River. 5. —The city of the Moriyas, in the Nyagrodha forest, where the charcoal ashes of Buddha’s funeral pyre were enshrined in a stfipa. 6-—A large city, visited by Huen Thsang, where a hospi¬ table Brahman lived who was devoted to Buddhism. I have now the satisfaction to state that I believe that I was completely successful, even beyond my own expecta¬ tions, in discovering and identifying correctly all the sites which I have just enumerated above, namely, as follows =— /. Rdmagrdma I identified, positively and with abso¬ lute certainty, with a place situated on an ancient mound of ruins called RAmpur, or Rfimpur Deoriya, which lies near the west bank of a large lake called the Marawa T 41 , which is really simply a widened-out portion of an ancient river bed. R&mpur is a large village, which is situated on a broad mound composed of ancient ruins. Close to the north-east side of the village there is a ruined stftpa, which is still up¬ wards of 20 feet in perpendicular height. And close to the north-east side of the stfipa there is the bed of an an¬ cient tank. There is also another old tank a short distance to the west of the stfipa. Rampur is situated exactly 26 miles (in a straight line) to the south-east half east-south- east from Bhuila, which has been identified with Kapilavastu (and in long. 82° 59', 'lat. 26° 44!'), which agrees as nearly as possible with the distance and position assigned to Rimagr 4 ma by Huen Thsang (as estimated at 28 miles). 2. Maneya I identified with a very large and extensive mound of ancient ruins, at which there is now a modern tem¬ ple called Tameswar N 4 th, by which name the whole place has come to be best known in the present day. But I found out, by persevering enquiries, that the ancient name of the place had been Mandynagar, or Maniyang, or Maneyba, or Maneywa. This place is situated between the Katnaya. River and the KfidawA Nadi, or Nala, about 9 miles (in MiNisr^ PLATE I, VQS*. XXII. Scale 1 Inch = 7 Miles, riBiiian € •Di^Viwa milj Sax*an3Ih ToihU.v' 1 3 pariva Satjora^' WAjN ■fcJKaraii Kudari^a Ml utnpur 1'Khar anti Barkhora-* /ftaRaiapati .Basnaola i.Ha^ganpur ciidaha JPirAoia lari hpTpurj Lvrzapiir nnao pharmpm-Q tfcBlwmsdih |N o;vra<tn iwar CtU TH icirun Narampur ainva. r l) h a rnikrxi ijsk a rain p ur o .^V HaM-h AMR ofwar SaictKhi BHOJFURi A. C. Carlleyle, dd. Uttotftraphed at tba Parv«y of India Offic*#. Calcutta, Fabriiax? 1W«. SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. a straight line) east-south-east from Rlmpur (RAmagr.4- ma); but. the travelling distance by road is about 11 miles, while from Bhuila, the site of Kapilavasth, the distance is about 37 miles. But as the Kftdaw& Nadi, which means the leaped river, and which I have identified with the Anoma, runs about a. mile beyond and to the north-east of Tameswar, or the ruins of Maneya, the total distance from Kapilavastu, south-eastwards, to the Anoma River, would thus be about 38 miles, which agrees as nearly as possible with the estimate of about 42, or say 40 miles, derived from the Indian Buddhist Scriptures, which, it must be remembered, was, after all, the travelling distance, in ancient times, by a round-about route, at a time when there were no roads, but a mere track, winding about through forests and marshes (some of which latter impediments still remain in part even to the present day). And I may men¬ tion that, although I myself travelled from Bhuila, the site of Kapilavastu vid Rltmpur (R&rnagr&ma) to the Kudawi Nadi, beyond the ruins at Tameswar (Maneya), by the shortest or most direct route that I possibly could, yet I found the travelling distance to be about 40 miles! The main mass of the ruins at Tameswar (or Maneya) consists of an elevated flat-topped ridge or plateau, about a mile in length from north to south, and which is entirely composed of brick ruins. The breadth of this mass of ruins from east to west is irregular, it being in some places broad and in other places narrow. It is covered with a dense grove of trees. In the northern end of this mass of ruins there is a great sagar, or very large tank, full of deep water. At the north-western corner of the s4gar there is a ruined cone-shaped brick stdpa, which is fully 30 feet in height. There are also many other detached ruins scattered here and there, round about. About a mile to the north there is a village called Mehniya. ,?■ The Anoma River .—As another proof of the cor¬ rectness of my identification of the ruins at Tameswar with Maneya, and of the KtidawS. Nadi (or leaped river) with the Anoma River (which Buddha leaped across), and of ' TAINISr/fj, the locality, or tract of country, lying along the course of the K\idaw& Nadi, with the ancient district of Anuvarneya (or, as I take it to be, Anu-v&n&ya), I have now to point out that what is called the Kftdawa Nadi or Nala is in reality simply the southern continuation of the old bed of the B&n Ganga or B&n. River, or Budha B&n, which comes down from the north, from Ban-ki-chawar, about 4 miles to the north-east of B&npur Thana, and then runs in a south-south-easterly direction, to the Budha B&n bridge and chauki, on the high road which runs between Basti and Maghar and Gorakhpur. A short distance to the north of the road, near two villages called Enielpur and Sisswa, the B&n River sends off a branch towards the south-east, which afterwards crosses the road near a village called Jurwa, and from thence it runs southwards to Tameswar (or Maneya), where it assumes the name of the Kudawi Nadi or Nala. Now, B&n is simply the ver¬ nacular form of the Sa krit V 4 n 4 ; and, therefore, the original name of the riv must have been V&n 4 . Con¬ sequently, a district situateu long the banks of the V&na River would be called Anu-v&n&ya, which would mean along the V&na, and which must, therefore, evidently be the original and correct Sanskrit form of the Anu-vaineya of the Tibetan Buddhist Chronicles. Now, I suspect that the name of the Anomd River con¬ tains the same base Anu, and that it should really be written Anurn&, and that, therefore, it is a corruption of the Sanskrit Anum&n, which is the nominative case of the adjective Anumat, which would mean that of which the position or course is in accordance to or with something else, that is, parallel to, or having the same direction, or following a course parallel to, that of something else. Consequently, as applied to a river, Anum& (or Anumati) would mean the parallel river, or a river whose course ran parallel to the course of some other river near to it. Now, this is actually the very case with the B&n or V&na River, and its southern continuation, the Kudaw& Nadi, for the Ban or V&na River, and its southern continuation, the Kftdawcl, both run almost SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. exactly parallel to the Katn 4 ya River, which runs close to the west of them, at a distance of only from i-| mile to 3 miles! (The general course of the two rivers being parallel, and any local deviations being simply owing to short local windings.) The courses of these rivets, again, are also for the most part nearly parallel to that of the Ami River, which runs about 8 miles further to the east, so that the country there is as it were divided into long, narrow, parallel strips of land, which lie between and along parallel rivers ! But the name Anuma might also mean along the boundary, meaning that the Anum& River ran along the boundary of the district of Anu-v 4 n£ya, for in this sense anu-m& would literally mean along the measure, or measuring along, that is, along the measured limits, or along the boundary of dimensions, or that which formed or marked a boundary, by lying along it, or, as one might express it in modern Hindu¬ stani, Bardbar lambdi men sdthi sdth, muw&fik, mdpke hadd ke kin dre par . We may thus understand how the Vina alias Kidawi River was anu-rni to the district of Anu-vinaya ! 4 * The three stilpas of Chandaka's Return, of the Cut Hair, and of the Changed Garments, which were situated beyond or to the east of the Anumd River .—I have identified the site of these stupas with a place which is generally known by the natne of Mahi-thin Dih, and which is situated about 4 miles to the north-east from Tameswar, or Maneyi, —about a mile to the north of ,a village called Lachmi- pur, and about aj miles to the west-south-west-half-west from Maghar. Mahi-thin is, however, really only one of three points or portions of an extensive ruined site, w T hich is situated near the eastern bank of a lake called the Sir- sara T 41 , close to the north-east of which latter there is also a village called Sirsarao. The village of Sirsarao is situated on a mound of ruins ; and at the distance of about 400 feet to the east of the village there are the remains of a st&pa, which is now stripped of its bricks, and there is a lingam on the top of it. I believe this to be the remains of the stiipa of the Cut-Hair (where Buddha cut off his hair, on entering upon the life of an ascetic) ; and I believe that the name Sir-sarA is a compound derived from sir, the head, and sdra ) performed, or accomplished, which might refer to the rite of shaving the head on taking the vows of a devotee or ascetic. About 300 feet to the north¬ east of the Sirsarii stftpa there is a massive somewhat circular solid mound of bricks, about 50 feet in diameter, or about. 160 feet in circumference, but which is now only about 5 or 6 feet in height. I believe this latter mound to be the remains of the great stupa of Asoka, the sloupa de retour where Buddha parted with his servant Chandaka and his horse. About 370 feet to the north of the last- named ruin there is a large round-topped mound 1 ' of brick ruins, which is called MahA-tlictn (or Mah&sthAna), and there is a village bearing the same name, situated a short dis¬ tance to the east side of this mound. I believe this Mah&- th&n mound to be the remains of the stupa of the Changed Garments, where Buddha put off his royal garments, and exchanged them for those of a hunter, supposed to be Brahma. Lastly, about 700 feet to the south-east from the last-named site, there is an old village called Paithana. This name Pai- thAna might be derived either from pd 1 foot, and thdn ) or sthdn ) place (perhaps referring to Buddha's feet),—or from the Hindi Paith-dnd) meaning an entering in, that is, an entrance way. The whole of the extensive opeh space lying between the parti¬ cular mounds of ruins which I have noted above is covered with fragments of brick and pottery; and altogether, taking the whole extent of elevated ground which is covered with fragments of brick, &c., it betokens a very extensive ruined site, which probably comprises the ruins of an assemblage of various and numerous religious establishments, * This mound is somewhat circular in its horizontal outline ; but it has a very gradual and gentle slope on all sides. (Like this— SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. "Now, I have previously shown that the actual travelling distance of the mined site at Tameswar (which has been identified with Maneya) from Bhuila or Kapilavastu is about 40 miles; and therefore, as the ruins at Sirsara and Maha- th 4 n lie 3 miles beyond and to the north-east of Tameswar, the total distance will be 43 miles, which agrees with the distance given in the Lalita-Vist&ra, which is 6 yoyanas, or 42 miles. • Finally, I may also here mention, in conclusion to the above, that I ascertained that there are still some Jambu trees near the banks of the Sirsar& T&l. (The existence of Jambu trees in this locality having been noticed by the Chi¬ nese pilgrims.) 5. The City of the Moriyas in the Nyagrodha forest ; and the slUpa containing the charcoal ashes of Buddha's f uneral pyre.—I have identified the city of the Moriyas with a very extensive series of ruins called R4j-dh4ni, or llpdhaoliya, which is situated on the Gorra River, in the Gorakhpur dis¬ trict, at the distance of about 30 miles, in a direct line, south¬ east from the Maha-th&n Dih, or the Three Sttipas, and about 14 miles to the south-south-east-half-south from Gorakhpur. Here there are the extensive remains of a very large ancient city, which appears to have extended from the Rapti River, eastwards, to the Pharen River; or for a distance of fully 4 miles from west to east, with a varying breadth of about a mile from north to south. The ruins commence near Dih Ghat, on the eastern bank of the Rapti River, a series of detached mounds of brick ruins extending thence to the Gorra River. Next, on the eastern bank of the Gorra River there is a very large mound of ruins, called Updhaoliya Dih, which is about a mile in length, from north to south, by about 1,500 to 1,600 feet in breadth, from west to east. On the western part of the Dih there is a. conical ruined brick stflpa, which is still nearly 30 feet in perpendicular height. This I believe to be the remains of the famous stupa in which the charcoal ashes of Buddha’s funeral pyre were enshrined. Again, at the south-eastern corner of the Dih there is another ruined stiip& which may be about 15 or 16 feet in height Next, at the distance of about three-quarters of a mile to the REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, north-east of Upclhaoliya Dih there is the village of R&j- dh&ni, which is situated on part of a wide flattish mound of ruins, the rest of which is covered with jangai. Lastly, about i J- mile to the north-east of R&jdh&ni, there is an ancient square brick fort, or at least a square brick enclosure, called S£hankot, which is situated in the midst of a dense forest of bar, s&l, jamun, and other trees, and at the distance of about half a mile from the banks of the Pharen River. This square brick enclosure, which may be called the R&jdh&ni S&hankat, measured about 1,900 feet in length, from west to east, by about 1,300 feet in breadth, from north to south. But traces of brick-ruins, or at least broken bricks in the ground, already commence in the jangai, half-way between the village of R&jdh&ni and the ancient fort of Sahankot. Now, I have already stated that the whole of the ruined sites which I have described seriatim above are evidently all, together, the temains of one great ancient city. I have also stated that the whole of these ruins, taken together, are generally known by the name of R&jdh&ni; and that 1 found the remains of sttipas there, including one in particular which I have identified with the famous stupa which contained the charcoal ashes of Buddha’s funeral pyfe. Now, the name R&jdh&ni means the capital city, or metropolis, and therefore 1 feel certain that this is the actual site of the capital city of the Moriyas in the Nyagrodha forest 1 And here also one still finds the remains of an ancient forest, which now extends from the village of Rajdh^ni to the Pharen River, but which a few years ago (before an Indigo- factory had been established at Updhaoliya) actqally extended over Updhaoliya Dih itself ; and here also one finds numerous ancient Bar trees, and several places in the same locality which have derived their names from the Bar tree, such as Barhei, Barehi, and Barhaira. And Bar and Nyagrodha are simply two different names for the same tree, or rather, Nyagrodha is simply one of the Sanskrit names of the Bar tree. Lastly, with regard to the distance and position of the place. The Chinese traveller Huen Thsang makes the distance from the Anoma River to the city of the Moriyas to be 180 to 190 li, or from 30 to 32 miles. Now SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. T have already stated that the ruins really commence near, Dih Ghat, on the east bank of the Rapti River.. The distance from, the KudawA Nadi (which I have identified with the Anoma), near Tameswar, to the ruins near Dih Ghcit, is exactly 30 miles ; while the distance from my proposed site of the three stupAs at MahAthAn is about 29 miles. But it must be remembered that these are the direct distances, in a straight line, as measured on the map ; while the travelling distance is considerably over 30 miles, which exactly agrees with Huen Thsang* s estimate. 6 . Rudrapur % —From RAjdhAni I proceeded straight southwards to Rudrapur. I have identified either Rudra¬ pur, or else some ruins situated at Baraon and Satnogar, about 6 miles to the south of it, with the large town where a hospitable Brahman lived, who was devoted to Bud¬ dhism, and which was visited by Huen Thsang on his way from Kusinagara to BanAras. Huen Thsang places this town at the distance of 200 li, or 33 miles, to the south-west from Kusinagara. Kusinagara/it is well known, has been identified with the ruins near Kasia or Kasya, 35 miles to the east of Gorakhpur. Now the distance from Kasya to Rudrapur is 28 miles, in a straight line, in a south-west direction, which is 5 miles less than the travelling distance given by Huen Thsang; while again the distance from Kasya to the great ruined fort, called SAhan- kot or NAth-nagar, which is about a mile to the north of Rudrapur, is only 27 miles.* There are, however, some ancient ruins of considerable extent about 6J miles to miles to the south of Rudrapur, at two places called Baraon and Samogar. Now the distance from Kasya to Baraon, in a direct line, is about 32 miles, in a direction south-west-half- south-south-west ; but the ruins of Kusinagara are situated at the distance of about a mile to the south-west of Kasya, which reduces the distance to about 3 r miles ; and therefore the ruins at Baraon and Samogar agree better with the dis¬ tance and position of the city mentioned by Huen Thsang; as the travelling distance, by road, from the ruins near Kasya # But from the ruins near Kasya to the ruins near Rudrapur is only 26 miles. misfo .REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, to Baraon, could not be less than 33 miles, by the shortest route. Moreover, Baraon and Samogar lie upon a direct line drawn from Kasya to BanAras. For if we take a good distinct map of that part of the North-West Provinces of India, and draw a straight line, with a ruler, from Kasya to BanAras, it passes only 4 miles to the east of Rudrapur, close to the west side of Baraon and right through Samogar, crossing the Rapti River at the regular gh&t between Samogar and Bairiya (the Byreeah of the maps). Whereas, on the other hand, Khukundo and Kahaon, which General Cunningham proposed, respectively, are 11 miles and 14 miles too far east, and totally out of the way, of a straight line drawn from Kasya to BanAras ! Now the objections raised by General Cunningham against the identification of the Rudrapur ruins, with the city of the Brahman visited by Huen Thsang, were as follows : Firstly, that Rudrapur is not on the direct line from Kasya to BanAras ! But I have already shown that Rudrapur lies only 4 miles to the west of a direct line drawn from Kasya to BanAras, and that the ruins near Baraon and Samogar lie directly on the line ; whereas Khukundo and Kahaon lie respectively 11 miles and 14 miles too far to the east of the line. Secondly,* General Cunningham says, that if Huen Ths&ng’s route had passed through Rudrapur, it would have entailed the passage of two rivers, namely, the Rapti as well as the GhAgra. But from ray own personal observation I find that people, and especially the natives of India, do constantly, and every day, cross any two rivers, by the regular ferries, in order to save or escape a round-about, out-of-the-way road, and a long journey. Now it is quite possible, nay even probable, that Huen Thsang may have wished expressly to go by way of the ancient city situated at the Rudrapur SAhankot, for the very purpose of visiting the rich influential and hospitable Brahman who was zealously devoted to the Buddhist religion ! And if Huen Thsang went purposely to the ancient city, which was situated at the Rudrapur SAhankot, he would most certainly not go out of his way, by the Mahili GhAt, on the GhAgra River, in order to get to BanAras; but he would go by the usual and common route by which pilgrims from the neighbourhood of SARAN, AND GHAZlPUR. t 1 Rudrapur travelled to Ban&ras j and that is, across the Rapti River, as I have ascertained for a fact by enquiries on the spot. ’ Now I made particular enquiries at Rudrapur as to the oldest and most commonly used route or routes by which people have travelled from Rudrapur to Banhras, both in ancient and in modern times; and I find that people never travelled from Rudrapur by way of the Mahili GhAt, on the Gh&gra River, to Bandras, but that they always do travel, and "have always in old times travelled, by way of the Rapti River, that is, by way of two gh&ts on the Rapti River, namely, the Aswandp&r GMt, on the Rapti, 7 miles to the south-west from Rudrapur, and by the Samogar-Belud Gh&t, 7 miles to the south from Rudrapur. And I have been told by the people here that these two ghats on the Rapti have always, from the most ancient times, been used by the people of Rudrapur and the neighbourhood in travelling to Ban&ras. Then, after having crossed the Rapti, they cross the Ghagra even by the Barhal Ghat. It may be as well now to give a short description of the ruins at Rudrapur. The ruins are situated mostly to the north, but also extend to the east and west of the town of Rudrapur. The great fort called Sahankot, at Rudrapur, must not be confounded with the other Sahankot, much further north, at RAjdhani, which I have previously described. The Rudrapur S&hankot is situated about three-quarters of a mile to the north of the town of Rudrapur. This great ancient fort is a quadrangle of which the sides are not equal. According to my measurements, I found the northern side to be 2,500 feet in length, the eastern side 2,300 feet, the southern side 2,200 feet, and the western side 2,015 feet. There is also a sort of outer and lower inclosure to the south of the former, which measured 2,300 feet from north to south, by 3,700 feet from east to west. This was probably some outer Shahr Panhh. The ramparts of the great fort are very high and broad, and varied in height to from 15 to 25 feet ; and at some points, when mea- , sured outside, perhaps even more. Outside the fort, and near the eastern side of it, there is the temple of REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, ♦ Dftdhn&th, which did not appear to me to be very old— at least much more modern than the ruins which surround it. The original temple of Dudhncith appears to have been a plain square stone building, without any ornament, but the lower part of which has been encased within a modern closed- in brick verandah. The temple is surmounted by a broad round-topped octagonal dome, which has a sort of small cupola on the top of it. There is nothing inside the temple except a small lingarn. The temple is surrounded by a walled- in court. Along the sides of the inclosure there are some three or four smaller modern shrines, which are surmounted by tall pointed spires. There are several broken statues of various divinities within the in closure ; but I could not find one single Buddhist one, although I noticed one smallish naked squatting Jain figure. There is no pyramidal temple whatever at Rudrapur, such as is said to have been described by Buchannan Hamilton* I counted and visited about twenty-five detached or isolated mounds of ruins, altogether, round about Rudrapur, but I found nearly the whole of them to be the ruins of Brah- manical lingam temples ; many of them with enormous black stone 1 in gams still standing embedded in the tops of them, while others had fallen down into excavations made by the zamindars. Of the whole twenty-five detached mounds of ruins, there are only four that have even the outward ap¬ pearance of stupa mounds ; but of these four, two are oblong or oval shaped, and have huge Lingams embedded in their tops, surrounded by traces of straight -walls of a former temple. All the mounds which have been excavated, from time to time, by the zamindars, for the sake of bricks or stone, have invariably turned out to be lingam temples. There is, how¬ ever, a conical sttipa-shaped mound, at a village called Arnaoni, about 2 miles to the north of Rudrapur. On the top of this conical mound there is an enormous black stone lingam, which is encircled by three great rings of stone, the uppermost of which is an argha. There is a large statue of Vishnu, about n feet nr height, standing under a tree, to the east of Rudrapur. • mtSTtty SARAN, AND GHAZ1PUR. „§L The whole extent of all the ruins, taken together, may be about 2 miles from north to south, by from i-|- to 2 miles from east to west. Rudrapur is situated on the Manjhne River. Another fact which militates against the possibility of Rudrapur being the city of the Moriyas in the Nyagrodha forest, is that there is no forest at all at Rudrapur, nor any¬ where near the ruins. The nearest approach of the forest or jangal is on the east side, where it commencesatthedistan.ee of about 2 miles or . more from Rudrapur. But this forest is not composed of Bar trees at all, but it is a mixed jangal containing trees of all sorts. There is no forest on any other side of Rudrapur. But at the distance of about 5 miles to the north of Rudrapur, a great forest begins to commence, which is entirely composed of Bar trees. This forest extends, for about 3 miles northwards, to an old place called Mitha¬ bel ; but it extends much further north-westwards, in the direction of Harpur, Dubaoli, Barhaira, Silhatha, and R&j- dh&ni; and this must therefore be the Nyagrodha forest mentioned by Huen Thsang. But as this Bar forest originally extended to, and even beyond, RAjdhani and Updhaolia, and even now really meets, or approaches within a very short distance of, the R&jdhani forest, while its southernmost border is fully 5 miles distant to the north of Rudrapur, it is plain that R&jdhani has abetter claim to be considered as situated in the Bar forest than Rudrapur, where the cultivation of the fields belonging to a large still thriving native town must always have kept the forest at a distance, Mithabel may be said to be absolutely in the Bar forest. 7. The Bar Forest and Mithabel .—I have already previ¬ ously stated that my route from Gorakhpur to Rudrapur was along the usual road, along the east bank of the Rapti River, south-south-eastwards, to Barhei Dih-Gh&t and Updhaoliya; and from thence on, again, south-south-eastwards to Rudrapur. But on my return route from Rudrapur I pursued a totally different route, straight northwards, through the great Bar JForest, to Mithabel and ChaorATh&mt This route lay to the east of the Pharend or Purcen River, and somew'hat near to, 14 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, and parallel to, the Manjhne River. By this means, having already previously cut across the country from the Rapti at Dih-Ghat north-eastwards, to the Pharind or Ptircen River, I now cut the country through in an entirely new direction, forming the third side of a triangle. I beg to refer to that sheet of the Indian Atlas which embraces a map of the Gorakhpur District. It will be seen that at the distance of 4! miles to the north, or rather north-north-vvest-half north from Rudrapur, there is a village which is marked in the map as Khundowlee (properly Khandaoli). At one- third of a, mile to the north of this village, the boundary of the Pargana Salimpur Majhaoli terminates, and Par- gana Plaveli commences. It is exactly at this boundary that the great Bar Forest commences, at the distance of about 5 miles to the north of Rudrapur. This Bar Forest extends thence 3 miles northwards to Mithabel; but from below Mithabel it extends westwards for about miles or 3 miles, by way of Harpur and Dubaoli, to within a distance of about a mile from the junction of the Pharind and Gorra Rivers, which is only il to the south-east of Upadhaoliya Dili; so that the great Bar Forest actually approaches within 2J miles of the ruins near Rkjdh&ni, which 1 have identified with the city of the Moriyas in the Nyagrodha Forest. And. I have already previously stated that Rajdhini itself is situated, within the borders of another great forest, of mixed trees, which originally united with the Bar Forest. But if it be held that neither Rajdhkni nor Rudrapur can be identified with the city of the Moriyas, because neither of these places is situated actually in the midst of the Bar Forest, then let us see if we can find any ancient ruins buried in the midst of the great Bar Forest through which 1 passed. I would beg to direct attention to the an¬ cient village of Mithabel, which is situated' on a mound of ruins, 7^ or 8 miles to the north of Rudrapur, and 5 miles to the south-east of Rajdh 4 ni, and on the northern edge of the Bar Forest. This forest is wholly and entirely composed of Bar trees only, which in Sanskrit are called Nyagrodha, or Vata ; and this must therefore be the remains of the ancient SARAN. AND GHAZIPUR. *5 Nyagrodha Forest mentioned by Huen Thsang, and also in the Tibetan Dulva, but which is erroneously called Pippalawano in the Ceylonese chronicles. It is on the northern or north¬ eastern edge of this Bar Forest, as I have said, that the ancient village of Mithabel is situated, on a mound of ruins. About i mile to the south of Mithabel, and in the middle of the Bar Forest, I found a small temple, of modern age, containing ancient statues of N&rayan and Lakshmi,, which had evi¬ dently existed long before the present temple was built. Close to the back or west side of the small temple, there is a biped or double-topped mound of brick ruins, or, in other words, a mound of brick ruins which terminates in. two high conical points, which appear like the ruins of twin stupas. Again, about a third or a quarter of a mile to the north of the last, there are three or four more somewhat conical-shaped or dome-shaped mounds of brick ruins, which may possibly be the ruins of sthpas; and the ground all around is strewed with small fragments of brick, for some distance. It is about a quarter or a third of a mile to the north-east of the last- named ruins that the village of Mithabel is situated, on a broad mound of ruins, which is probably the site of an ancient town* To the north side of Mithabel there is a large tank, and a Shiw&la or a temple of Siva. S. Bhopa .—Six miles to the north of Mithabel, I came to the village of Chaora, where there is a Th&na, and past which the high road from Gorakhpur to Deoriya runs. About half a mile to the north-west of Chaora, and close to the north side of the road, there is an old village called Bhopd. Imme¬ diately to the south of the road, exactly opposite to Bhop&, and about half a mile to the west of Chaora, there are three high conical mounds of brick, which are evidently the ruins of stupas. Again, about half a mile to the south-west of the last- named mounds, there is a considerably extensive mass of ruins, including also some high conical mounds of brick, in a grove of high trees and j'angal. Close to the southwards of these ruins there is a village where a Sikh lives who possesses a grant of land conferred upon him by Government, for some act of gallantry. About 2 miles to the west-north-west l6 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, from the last-named ruins, in the middle of a forest, and near the left or eastern bank of the Pharend or Purcen River, there is a smallish mound of ruins, on which there is a Th&n of Devi, called Tarkulahi ki Devi ka Th&n, where a great fair, or m6la, is held every year. I have thus given a full and particular description of the country and the forests between and along four different rivers, the Rapti, the Gorra, the Pharend or Puroen, and the M&njhne. g. Kusinagara. —After leaivng Chaora and Bhopa I went straight to Gorakhpur, where I remained from June to November. In the month of November I started for Kasya, and pitched my camp near the black stone statue of Buddha Bhikshu, among the ruins of Kusinagara. As this is not the Report of any one season, but only a part of a mere abbreviated summary of the operations carried on by me during the course of two seasons, although I have really very much to say about my discoveries at Kusinagara, yet my notice of them must here necessarily be cut as short as possible. The black stone image of Buddha Bhikshu, near which ,1 encamped, has already been described in General Cunning¬ ham’s Archaeological Reports of the years 1861-62; but as General Cunningham did not make any thorough excava¬ tions at Kusinagara, it will now be my business to give a short account of what I myself did in that line there. Close to the east side of the black statue, there was a low round-topped mound of brick ruins. I immediately set about excavating this mound, and discovered that it contained the base of a small temple, about 23 feet square exteriorly, and about 10 feet square at the floor, or 12 feet above, interiorly. The doorway was on the east side ; and against the inside of the western wall I found the brick pedestal on which the great black statue had once stood. On excavating round about the walls outside, I found a large black slab of stone with an in¬ scription, lying near the wall on the south side of the doorway. This inscription was in the Kutila character, and probably of about the eleventh century. It commenced with the words “ Om namo Buddhdya namo Buddhdya Bhikshune’’ SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. *7 But I could not find any date, and many of the lines were broken and imperfect; and the ends of most of the lines, and the lower right hand corner of the inscription, were entirely gone, owing to the shalingoff of the stone, which w r as a kind of black slate. After having completed this excavation as far as was necessary, I proceeded to the great long mound of ruins called the MAthA Kunwar kA kot. Here, towards the east¬ ern end of the mound, there was a high pointed pile of brick, which was the remnant of the core of the dome of a great stfipa ; and at the base of this pile, a portion of the circular outline of the neck of the stCipa could be discerned. Close to the west side of this great mass of ruin, there was a slight, narrow depression; and again immediately to the west of that, the mound rose again, presenting a flattish top with an oblong outline. As it appeared to me likely to be the ruins of an oblong-shaped building, and as I was actually in search of the great Buddhist temple containing the famous colossal statue of the NirvAna of Buddha, it struck me that I might possibly have the good fortune here to hit upon some re¬ mains of the famous statue. I then ordered a shaft to be sunk in the centre of this mouncl. After digging to the depth of about io feet, 1 came upon what appeared to be the upper part of the legs of a colossal recumbent statue of stone, but which had apparently been repaired with plaster, f then hurried on the excavations, until I had uncovered the entire length of a colossal recumbent statue of Buddha, lying in a chamber which was about 30 feet in length by nearly 12 feet in breadth. The statue was lying on a broken SinghAsan. But J. found that the statue itself was very much broken, and that many portions of it were wanting. The upper part of the left leg, and both feet, and the left hand, and a portion of the body about the waist, and a portion of the head and face, were entirely gone • and a portion of the left arm, which had been lost at some former period, had been replaced by stucco,* or brick covered with a coating of strong * I afterwards found all the portions of the left arm, except a piece of the shoulder and the hand, VOL, XXII. c plaster. The right arm and hand were placed under the head, and the figure was reclining on its right side, with the face turned towards the west. The stone of which the statue was formed was sandstone, of a mixed colour, mostly dark red and clay colour. The total length of the statue was about 20 feet, and the length of the SinghAsan about 24 feet. The thickness of the walls of the temple was. nearly 10 feet, and the dimensions of the temple exteriorly were about 47 feet 6 inches by 32 feet. But there was, besides, also an ante-chamber, or entrance chamber, to the west, which was about 35 feet 6 inches in length by about 15 feet in breadth, outside, with walls about 5 feet thick; the dimensions of the interior being 26 feet by 10 feet 6 inches. I next commenced to repair both the statue and the temple. When about to commence the repairs of the statue, I dis¬ covered that some fragments of the statue had been built in under it, into the SinghAsan. I then had the greater portion of the statue lifted off from the SinghAsan, with great diffi¬ culty,'and commenced to dig down into the SinghAsan, for the missing fragments of the statue. In this way I recovered 'a great many of the missing portions of the statue ; and I found that many pieces were buried down under the SinghA¬ san. The fragments which I found ranged in size from a few inches to several feet. I was thus enabled to res¬ tore most of the statue with its own fragments, but still several portions were wanting. 1 had, however, found several rough pieces of stone in the excavations which 1 made in various parts of the great mound, and 1 fitted these into the gaps in the statue; and when I fell short of stone, I restored the remaining portions with a strong compound-like stucco, composed of a cement formed of various ingredients, among which was Portland cement, I having been so fortunate as to obtain a little Portland cement through the kindness of Mr. Peart, who was then District Engineer of Gorakhpur. I also entirely repaired, restored, and beautified the SinghA¬ san. There were originally four truncated pillars of stone (or stone posts), one at each corner of the SinghAsan, but o f these, only two were found. The sides of the SinghAsan had SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. Iq been formed of slabs of stone, but many of these were want¬ ing, and not more than just enough to complete one side were found. Affixed to the western side of the Singh&san I found three small sculptures, displaying three human figures, each carved in a niche cut into a solid block of stone. The left-hand figure was that of a woman with long hair, and stooping or crouching forwards with her hands resting on the ground. I he right-hand figure might be that of either a male or a female; and was in a sitting position, with the head resting on the right, hand, as if in sorrow. The central figure was that of a man, sitting in a squatting position, with his back turned towards the spectator, and his face hidden from view and turned towards the great statue of the Nir¬ vana. On the lower part of the stone of this latter sculp¬ ture, I was so fortunate as to find an inscription, in two lines, in characters of probably about the second century of the Christian era. I read this inscription as follows :—• /.—Deya dharmoyam Mahd Vihdre Swamino Haribalasya. 2. -Pratimdm c hey am ghatitddine Sanghd * Surena. This I translate as follows:— “The religious gift, to the Great VMr, of the Lord .Haribal. The colossal statue (was presented) to the first united Assembly * by Sura.” By the above I understand that it was intended to say that the stone with the small sculpture of the sitting figure of a man was the pious gift to the Great Vih&r of a noble¬ man named Haribal, but that the colossal statue of the Nir¬ vana of Buddha had been presented to the first united Assembly by Sura. Now, it is remarkable that a person called Sura was the presenter of a lion-capital pillar to a vih&r near the famous stupas of Bhilsa and Sanchi. At least I gather this from the copy of an inscription which Gene¬ ral Cunningham was so kind as to send me, and which I read as followsSundare Vihhre SwAmino Sura Siriha-baliputra rupyA. In this inscription some of the words are lost; but I con- * Gha tit udine. Sangha ; to the united first Assembly ■ VOL. XXJI, REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, cei've it to mean 'that Sw&mi Sura presented a lion-whelp sculpture to the Beautiful Vih&r. After having completed the repairs and restoration of the statue, I gave it a coating of paint, in order to preserve the stone ; and I coloured the face, neck, hands, and feet, a yel¬ lowish flesh-colour, and I coloured the drapery white ; and I also gave a black tint to the hair. Thus I really made the statue as good and as perfect as ever it was,—-or perhaps even better than ever it was. I may also further state that 1 myself worked at the restoration of the statue with my own hands, like any common mason. At the same time that I was repairing the statue, I also set about repairing the tem¬ ple. When the ruins of the temple were first excavated, the ruined walls varied in height at various parts fiom 5 to 6 , 7 > 8 , and in one place nearly 10 feet, measured from outside; but their height inside was much less. But the tops and a portion of the outer sides of the walls being in a broken, shaky, and bulged condition, many parts had to be taken down and re¬ built. I then next commenced to heighten the walls, and I raised them all to the height of 12 feet. The walls had a slope or batter; and the bricks outside, after every three courses, were built in for about inch with what the native masons call a khaskiL The next thing was to roof in the temple. On clearing out the inside of the temple, I discovered a few bricks, in situ, of the remains of the spring of the arch of a vault. The bricks were set on end ; and from the line of curve which their sloping edges indicated, it was evident that the arch of the vault had been a pointed one, meeting at. the height of about 13 feet from the floor. I consequently deter¬ mined to build a pointed arched vault of 12 feet in height. At one end of the building I also found a few bricks remaining in situ of an arched window ; and there had evidently been another window of the same kind at the other end. In the doorway I also found a few bricks of the spring of an arch, in situ standing on end. In the outer or front entrance chamber there had also evidently been a small window at each end. 1 had thus a great vault and five arches to rebuild. Butin SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. the inner doorway of the temple itself, I made an interesting discovery. In two hollows, one on each side, at the lower part of the doorway, 1 found the ancient cup-shaped iron pivot hinges, of the former doors ; and with the hinges, I found some fragments of black charred wood, which showed that the doors had been destroyed by fire; and as numerous human bones and various charred substances were found in the outer chamber, as well as in both doorways, it was evident that Buddhism had here been anihilated by fire and sword ! 1 must now describe how I built the great vaulted roof over the temple. It must be borne in mind that I had already entirely repaired and restored the great statue, before I com¬ menced to build the roof; and therefore an arch or vault of masonry had to be thrown over the temple, without in any way injuring the precious statue below ! How this was to be done was a puzzle to the native masons ; and one head mason and his men actually ran away out of sheer fright at the difficulty of the undertaking ! But I at once saw how it was to be done; and 1 would have undertaken to build an arched vault, over a shop full of glass and crockery, without removing or injuring a single fragile article. It only required a little gumption ! I had already built up the two end gable walls, to their required curved shape and height, to serve as a guide for the curve and height of the arch. I then next covered the statue entirely with a large pall or cloth, and over that with soft mats. Over all, I placed a cage formed of mats and bamboos. Then along each side of the interior of the long walls of the chamber, I built up two rough tempo¬ rary inner walls of brick and clay, 6 feet in height, and about a foot in thickness. On these, from side to side, I placed a close flooring of bamboos and mats, at the height of about a foot above the highest projecting point of the statue and 6 feet, above the floor. I then placed a close series of strong bamboo ribs on end, on the two rough temporary side wallsq and made the top ends of the bamboos from each side meet above, at nearly the height of the required arch, and bound their points firmly together, and united them to a strong ridge pole which 1 had placed on the tops of the two gable end 2 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, walls, so that it lay lengthwise, from end to end, along the centre. I then covered this frame-work with a coating of cow-dung, mixed with soft adhesive clay; and 1 thus foim'ed a perfect curved mould for the pointed-arched vault. Then 1 set the masons to build the arch of the vault; and when the arch was sufficiently far advanced, I clinched it with ancient bricks of an enormous size, as keystones. When the vault was completed, the next thing was to take out the frame-work of bamboos, &c. ; and the removal of the whole mass of frame work was effected, piece by piece, by passing the materials out through the two arched windows which I had already previously constructed in the two end walls. After the frame¬ work was removed, I next removed the bricks and clay of the two temporary supporting side walls, the materials being carried, bit by bit, out of the doorway. At length, when all was clear, I uncovered the statue, and found that it was per¬ fectly intact. Not a single bit of anything had fallen on it, and it had not received the slightest injury of any kind. As I had found some round moulded bricks in the exca¬ vations, which had evidently formed parts of pinnacles, l used them for the same purpose ; and I surmounted the roof of the temple with a row of pinnacles. After this, 1 fixed a strong iron barred swivel door, in the doorway of the temple; ■aliid j placed an iron railing round the statue j and I also fixed iron bars in the windows. I also roofed in the outer front anti-chamber, with a slop¬ ing roof of sil timber and tiles, and I put a wooden door in the outer doorway of the front chamber. In the preceding description of my operations, it will be seen that 1 have stated that I completed the repairs and restoration of the statue before I built the roof over the tem¬ ple ; or, in other words, 1 built the roof over the temple after I had repaired and restored the statue. Now it is possible that if this summary report of my opera¬ tions should happen ever to be read by any engineers, some over-wise engineer may possibly exclaim, Well, 1 never heard of such a thing ! What, first restore or reconstruct a arand Statue, and afterwards build a roof of masonry over SARAN, AND GHAZIPIJR. 2 3 it ? Why did not the fellow have the common sense first to build the roof, and afterwards to repair the statue ? ” Well, then, my answer to this would be an effectual one. Hooly and fairly, man ! hooly and fairly ! Just wait a wee, and I’ll tell you all about it. You see the building which I roofed in was not a dwelling-house, either for you or for me ; but it was simply a covering for the protection of a grand ancient statue, of historical interest ; and therefore until there was a statue to cover and- protect,— or rather until the statue was in such a condition of perfectness as to make it worth while to protect and cover over with a roof,— there was no use in roofing in the old temple at all ! Now I have already previously stated that, when I first found the statue, it was broken to pieces, and numerous portions of it were lost and wanting. And therefore, .when I first set to work to repair the statue, I was in great doubt as to whether it would be possible to repair it at all ; and at that time I had no hopes whatever of being able to restore it to its pristine condition, seeing that the statue was in a firightfully smashed-up condition, and numerous parts of it were entirely wanting, and could not at first be found any¬ where, until I made an excavation underneath the pedastal of the statue, after having had all that then remained of it lifted off to one side. Consequently, until I had made quite sure of being able to repair and restore the statue, I was not going to be such a zany as to build a roof over nothing ! Now, the only way in which I could prove or ascertain whether the statue could be restored or not, was by fitting and joining together all the fragments of the statue which I could find ; and after the statue was all joined and put together, it then of course became' absolutely necessary to build a proper roof over it, in order to preserve and protect it! Q. E. D. But now, again, by those whose policy is retrenchment, it may perhaps be asked —And did the Government pay for all this restoration of a musty old Buddhist concern, merely for the sake of a little archaeological recreation ? I answer, No ! The Government funds which I had in hand did NOT prove sufficient for the completion of the whole work of restoration, in the manner in which I felt that it required to 24 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, be completed ; and so, when the Government funds in my hands ran short, I did not like to ask for any more ; and I myself supplied the deficiency (or rather the further funds which I wanted) out of my own salary. On counting the cost, afterwards, I found that in the course of about three months, or from June to September, I had spent over R 1,200 out of my own salary, on the completion of the works at the Matha Kunwar k& Kot. But in this sum must also be included the cost of some extra excavations which 1 paid for myself. I need hardly say that this expenditure brought me into considerable pecuniary difficulty. Yet I felt that it was necessary. And finally to all I would say:—Let those who cavil oome and see the completed work with their own eyes, and then I shall be satisfied! Besides the excavation and restoration of the temple and statue of the Nirv&na, other still more extensive excavations were carried on in various parts of the great mound of the M&tM Kunwar k& kot. The greatest excavation of all was made in clearing and laying bare to its foundations the great stupa close to the back or east side of the temple. When first I arrived at the MAth 4 Kunwar, the whole mound was covered with a dense thorny jangal; and towards the east end, a compact mass of debris of broken brick and earth rose to the height of about 40 feet, above the plain. Nothing in the shape of ruins was visible anywhere, except a high point¬ ed, rugged, perpendicular pile of brick, on the top of all which I afterwards found was the remnant of a portion of the central core of the former dome of a sttlpa. At the foot of this pile, on the northern and southern sides, some slight excavations had been made by some former civil officers, which exposed, on two sides, a small portion of the circular outline of the neck of the stupa. But everywhere else, a solid mound of debris reached completely up to the foot of .the ra gged pinnacle of brick on the top. The depth of the exca¬ vation which I made on the east side, in order to reach the original foundations of the base, or lower plinth, of the stupa, was about 30 feet, and reached to below the level of the SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 25 fields. I found that what had remained of the sthpa, buried below the upper ragged pinnacle of brick, was a circular tower, now about 12, but originally about 14 feet in height, and about 180 feet in circumference. I next found that this circular tower stood upon a square plinth, the east side of which measured about 85 feet in length; and the height of this plinth, on the south side, was about 4 feet 2 inches. This plinth stands upon another lower plinth, or basement, the east side of which measured 92 feet in length, with a height of about 4 feet 6 inches to 5 feet from the former level of the ground, which is below the present level of the fields. This gives a total height of about 21 feet, to what still remains of the stupa, in a pretty perfect condition. (These are the measurements of the height of the plinth on the southern side; but on the northern side, I found the upper plinth to be about 5 feet 6 inches in height, and the lower plinth about 4 feet in height.) Above and on the top of this height of about 21 feet, there was a sloping pile of ruins, which might be from 8 to 12 feet in perpendicular height, varying according to the point at which it was measured. Above this, there rose a high, rugged, pointed, perpendicular pile of brick, which was about 23 feet in height. This would give a grand total of about 54 or 55 feet in height. General Cunningham calculated the total height of the top of this ruin, from the plain, to be about. 58 feet; but, as has been seen, I could not make out more .than about 55 feet of height. I had however to clear off, or diminish, some part of the top of the upper pile of ruin, in order to lessen the top weight, as it overhung, or leaned, slightly towards the temple, and I was afraid of its falling on it. The circular tower or neck of the stdpa stands at the dis-. tance of only 13 feet to the east of the back wall of the temple. The plinth of the stftpa is carried on, westwards, to the north and south of the temple; and the temple in reality stands upon the same plinth as the circular tower of the stupa. The original total length of the grand plinth, from east to west, was.thus probably about 150 feet; the breadth 26 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, of the plinth, at its base, from north to south, being about 92 feet. But the temple which I repaired was not the original temple ; for the present temple was closely surrounded^ on three sides, by the ruined remains of an ancient wall, which extended to within 6 feet of the back of the present temple, while it extended about 10 feet beyond the front of the pre¬ sent temple. The exterior outline of this low-ruined wall of the ancient temple presented a series of horizontal step-like ins and outs, the four corners being thus frittered off by a series of angular recessions'. The dimensions of the ancient temple would appear to have been about 85 feet from north to south, by about 52 feet from east to west. There were ancient steps running down from the west side of the base of the ancient temple. These ancient steps were lower than, and about 10 feet distant to, the west of the steps of the present temple; and the ancient step probably originally reached dowm to the same level as the base of the lower plinth of the stftpa. Close adjoining to the east side of the base of the lower plinth of the stupa, I excavated a row of. small stupas, five in number, and which were of various diameters, namely, 8 feet 4 inches, 7 feet 8 inches, 9 feet, 6 feet, and 3 feet To inches. I also found another small stupa, 6 feet in diameter, and in a very perfect condition, adjoining the south side of the base¬ ment of the great stupa. But in the course of my general excavations, I found a numerous assemblage of small brick stupas, scattered over the eastern half of the great mound. At the north-east corner of the lower plinth or basement of the great stupa, down at the very foundation of the build¬ ing, and at the lowest point or greatest depth reached in the excavations, I found a red terra-cotta figure of Buddha, standing with his right hand raised in the attitude of teaching. The figure had lost the head ; but I afterwards found the head among the earth a short distance off. When the head was fixed on, I found that the whole height of the figure was 2 feet 2 inches. In the excavation to the east of the stupa 1 found a metal bell, with a portion of a thin iron rod SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. attached to it ; and I also found a fragment of another bell, and three more iron rods to which bells had been attached! The inference which 1 drew from this was that a row of bells had been attached to the rim of the stone umbrella which surmounted the stupa, I also found, in the same place, a four-armed figure of Ganesh, in dark greenish-blue stone, which measured i foot 8 inches in height. I should also mention that I found a small sitting figure of Maya Devi, in dark greenish stone, embedded in the inside of the wall of the front ante-chamber of the temple. I also found a broken figure of Vishnu in the ruins of a building which I excavated on the south side of the great mound. I had all these sculp¬ tures carefully fixed inside the temple. But the most interesting of the small sculptures which I found in the course of excavation, were two fragments of the ornamental side stone, or encircling stone, or canopy, of a small statue, which, from a portion of an inscription still remaining on the back of one of the fragments/would appear to have been a statue of Sariputra, who was one of the most famous and respected of the disciples or followers of Buddha. The fragment contained only the right half of the inscrip¬ tion, which I propose to read as follows :— ......(te) Sanyuvacha tesaifa cha yo mrocM..Sanggha SUri- putrasya. The two fragments of sculpture referred to above, evi¬ dently formed the top and a portion of the left side of the ornamental encircling stone, or canopy, of a small statue. The top piece displays a small sculpture of the Nirvana of Buddha, 2\ inches in length. It shows Buddha lying on his light side, on a couch, exactly as in the great statue in the temple. On the other fragment, there were two sculp¬ tures ; one showing Buddha sitting cross-legged, and the other, below it, showing Buddha, standing in the attitude of teaching; but the upper sitting figure had been broken oft at the waist. In the same excavation I also found a small plate of copper, about 4-| inches in length, by about an inch in width, with the Buddhist profession of belief in¬ scribed on it, in three lines, in characters of probably about REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, the fifth century of the Christian era. I read the inscrip¬ tion as follows:— Ye dharmma hetu prabbavH hetu teshctiii I ath3.gat3.hya vadata teshS.ncha yo niroclha evarii v&dt Mah3 Sramanah. At the back of the temple I also found upwards of twenty terra-cotta or burnt clay seals, with the Buddhist profession of faith impressed upon them, in characters of a later period. The largest of these seals had also three stfipas represented on it, in bold relief. I also made a partial excavation on the central highest part of the mound, to the west of the temple; and I uncover¬ ed a portion of the walls of some chambers, which appeared to have belonged to a monastery. And I also uncovered a portion of a pavement, and a drain or water channel, running through between the buildings. I also discovered an ancient well, at the depth of about 10 or 12 feet below the surface of the mound, at the distance of about 60 feet to the west of the temple. 1 cleared out this well, and repaired it, and built up the sides of it to a level with the top surface of the mound. This ancient well was originally square below, terminating in a slightly circular shape at the top. There is now good water in the well, and people draw water from it. According to Huen Thsang’s account, there was also a lofty stone pillar standing near or close to either the temple, or vihAra, or the great stupa, of the Nirvdna ; and on this pillar there was an inscription which recounted the cir¬ cumstances of the Nirvana of Tath&gata (Buddha), But as Huen Thsang says that —mats on n’y d pas ecrit le jour ni le mots de cet evenement (but they have not written there either the day or the month of this event), the inscription could not have been of any historical value in set¬ tling the true date of the death of Buddha. I searched everywhere for this pillar in the course of my excavations, but I could not find any trace of it. But as my excavation to the south side of the great stupa was somewhat less ex¬ tensive than on the other sides, it is just barely possible that the pillar may still be lying buried under the earth and SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 29 debris, at some short distance off to the south of the great stApa; but in that case the pillar must have been situated at a greater distance from the stftpa than would appear from the description of Huen Thsang. For immediately after his description of the stApa Huen Thsang says that —On d eleve en face une colonne en pierre , &c. (They have raised a pillar of stone in the face thereof,) It is difficult to say what side Huen Thsang meant by the face; but I can certify that no pillar could be found anywhere adjoining the stApa, jo, Pdwd .—After having completed my work at the MAthA Kunwar or Kusinagara, the next object which I had in view was to make investigations regarding the true site of an an¬ cient town called PAwA, at or near which Buddha is said to have rested and drunk water and bathed, before proceeding on to Kusinagara on his last journey, the course of which was from VaisAli or Besarh to Kusinagara. At PAwA there was a great stApa in which one of the original eight portions of the relics of Buddha was enshrined. In the Ceylonese Buddhist chronicles, PAwA is said to have been situated at the distance of about 12 miles from Kusina¬ gara, in the direction of the Gandak River, that is some¬ where to the east of Kusinagara and on the old road or track which people travelled between Vaisali and Kusina¬ gara. Now, some years ago, General Cunningham proposed to identify PAwA with the well-known large village of Padraona or Paraona, which is situated at the distance of 12 miles to the north-north-east-half-north from Kasya, or 13 miles from the actual ruins of Kusinagara. But this 13 miles from the actual ruins of Kusinagara is only the direct distance, in a straight line as measured on the map ; while the actual travelling distance, even with the improved roads of the pre¬ sent day, is 7 kos, or 14 miles. Now it will be generally allowed that the travelling distance in ancient times could not possibly have been less than the direct distance, in a straight line, as measured on the map at the present time. Consequently, if the travelling distance to PAwA in ancient 30 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, times was only 12 miles, when there were no proper roads, but much jangal and water intervening, it is utterly impossi¬ ble that the direct distance, when measured in a straight line on the map, could be 13 miles ! This is, however, only one of the objections which I have to bring forward against the possibility of Padraona being identified with Pawh. The second and much stronger objection which I have to make, is the position of Padraona as being far too far north and totally out of the way of the route from Vaisali to Kusinagara. The direction of the position of Vaisali, or Besarh, from Kusinagara, or Kasya, is south-east ; and therefore if P 4 w& was met with on the road in coming from Vaisali to Kusi¬ nagara, P<LwcL would probably be somewhere to the south-east of Kusinagara, a probability which becomes still more evi¬ dent, nay even absolutely certain, from the fact that bo,th Buddha himself, and afterwards also his chief disciple Ka- syapa, passed through Pawa on their way from Magadha and Vaisali to Kusinagara. It is evident, therefore, that we must look somewhere to the south-east of Kusinagara for the posi¬ tion of P&w£. Now if the travelling distance or distance by a winding track, from P&wftto Kusinagara, in ancient times, was 12 miles, it is probable that the actual direct distance, if measured in a straight line, would be only about 10 miles; and I have already shown that the direction from Kusinagara must have been about south-east. In accordance with these deductions, I find that, at the distance of about 10 miles to the south¬ east from the ruins of Kusinagara, there are the ruins of an ancient city at a place called Chetiyaon (the Suthyaoon of the maps), and that there is also the ruin of a large stupa at a place called Fftjila or F&zilnagar, only half a mile to the north-east of Chetiyaon, there being also the remains of other extensive ruins near the stupa, which evidently origin¬ ally formed simply one portion of the same ancient city of which Chetiyaon formed another portion, there being merely a narrow belt of marshy land between the two ancient sites. Close or about a quarter of a mile to the north-east of the ruined stupa there is the bed of an ancient river, which is SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 31' now called the Sonua or Sunawa, or Sonarra Nadi; but at some part of its course further south it would seem to take the name of Kukti $ for at the distance of about 19 miles to the south of Chetiyaon, I find that there is a ghAt, or ferry, called KtiM GhAti; and along the bank of the same river, we also find such names as Karkulaha and Khurhuria and Kuteya. Now according to the Ceylonese and Burmese Buddhist chronicles, the river near PAwA, at which Buddha stoped to bathe and drink, was called KukutthA or KakukhA. But in these chronicles this river is said to have flowed between PAwA and Kusinagara. Now about i|- mile to the west of Chetiyaon, there is another ancient river bed, which is called Anhea, but sometimes also Sonea or Sonawa. The name of this river be^l called Anheya, or Anhea, may be connected with the Hindi anhdnd, to bathe, and anhdn bathing, which latter is synonymous with the Sanskrit asndn, and therefore the Anhea or Anheya Nala may be the very river at which Buddha bathed! About 2 miles to the west of the Anhea Nala there is another river called the GhAgi Nadi. But all these three river beds,—the Sonawa or Sonarra, the Anhea, and the GhAgi, are all simply branches of one river which rises some distance to the north ; and therefore, in order to trace their origin, we must begin from their source. About 10 miles to the north-west of Padraona, and about 25 miles to the north-north-west of Chetiyaon, there is a large village called Singh A, and about a mile to the west of SinghA, there is a long lake, or jhil, of considerable size. From this lake a stream takes its rise which is the common source of the GhAgi, the Anhea, and the Sonarra or Sonawa Rivers. This stream runs, to the east of the BAndi Nadi, and to the west of the Jharehi River, that is, it runs south- eastwards between the two. From the SinghA lake, this stream or nala runs in a south-easterly direction, and passes half way between Padraona and Ramkola. It then turns east- south-eastwards, and passes close by the south-west corner of the Padraona TahsildAri, or Chaoni, and about 1-} mile to the south-west of the old village of Padraona; and it then 32 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, crosses the road which runs from Padraona to Kasya, at a village called Balochaha. From this point, the nala or river-bed runs in a south-south-easterly direction, for about 4 miles, until it reaches a place called Gangarani, where it passes through a small lake, which is turned into a tank, or kund. About 2 miles to the south of GangarAni, there is a place called MaharAni; and here the river divides or splits off into two branches,—one of which, which runs to the south-south¬ east, is called the Sonarra, or Sonawa Nadi—-and the other branch, which runs to the south-south-west, is called the GhAgi Nadi. The Sonarra, or eastern branch, runs even¬ tually past the great ruined stupa at Fajila, about J mile to the east of it. The GhAgi, or western branch, runs southwards from MaharAni, for about 4 miles, to a place called Sftnadia, or Sunadya (misspelt Soondia in the maps). At Sunadya, the GhAgi River again divides, or splits off, into two more branches, of which the lesser branch, which flows towards the south-south-east, is called the An¬ hea, and the other and greater branch, which flows at first towards the south-west, and then turns southwards, still retains the name of the GhAgi Nadi. The GhAgi River is after¬ wards joined by the BAndi Nala from the west, just before it crosses the road which runs from Kasya to FAzilnagar. But the Anhea, after a long winding detour, again rejoins the GhAgi, at a point about 11 miles to the south from Sunadya, and about 5 miles to the south of the road which runs from Kasya to FAzilnagar. And at this same point, exactly opposite to the rejunction of the Anhea and GhAgi Rivers, the GhAgi is also here joined, on its west side, by two other water-courses, namely, first, by an ancient river¬ bed, or nala, which comes down from the north, and which , comes out of the southern end of the RAmAbhAr Jhil, near the ruins of Kusinagara; and secondly, by the Khanua Nala, which comes in from the north-west, and which had previously come down close past the west side of Anrudhwa. Below', or to the south of, the triple junction, which is called a triveni, the single united river appears to take the name of the Khanua. At the distance of about 9 miles to the SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 33 south-east of this point, the river is joined, on its east side, by the Sonarra River, which, as I before stated, had passed down to the east of the ruined stupa near Fazila or F&zil- rlagar, and which, as we before saw, originally broke off from the Gh&gi River, at Maharani, about 10 miles to the north of Fazila and Chetiyaon. Below, or to the south of this last junction, the united river appears to assume the name of the Sonarra until it is joined, on the east side, about 10 miles further to the south, by a small stream called the Raota Nadi, after which the river appears to get the name of Kuku, as at Kuku Gh&ti. And this last name (or some similar name) it appears to retain, until it is joined, about 6 miles further south, by the Chota Gandak River, which comes in from the west, at a point a little to the north-east of a place called Bhatni. Now I have shown that the Gh&gi River, with its afflu¬ ents, is the largest and most important river, to the west of Chetiyaon, or between Kasya and Chetiyaon, and that the Gh4gi is only the latest, the most westerly, and the most con¬ siderable, channel of an ancient river, the intermediate and older channel of which is the Anhea Nadi, and the most ancient and. most easterly channel of which is the Sonarra or Sonawa Nadi. It is therefore worthwhile to enquire what is the meaning of this name Gh&gi. From all the enquiries that I have been able to make, it would appear that Gh&gi Nadi would mean the fowl river! Gh&gas in Hindi means a large fowl, or a cock of a large kind, and Gh&ga and Gh&gi would appear to be sometimes used to mean a cock and hen of the larger kind of gallinaceous fowls. Now, Kukkuta, in Sanskrit, means a cock ; and therefore Gbdgi Nadi and Kukkuta Nadi would be al¬ most synonymous names. And I have already stated that in the Ceylonese Buddhist chronicles, the river which flowed between P 4 w& and Kusinagara is called the Kukuttha River. There is also another curious fact which is worth noting, and that is, that close to the west bank of the Ghagi River, a short distance to the north of the road, and just where the B 4 ndi Nala joins the Gh&gi Nadi, there VOL, XXII. D 34 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, is a village called Kukkur-pAti, near a small tributary nala, which is called the KhauA or KahuA Nala. I therefore believe that the Gh&gi Nadi is the same as the KukkutthA River of the Ceylonese Buddhist chronicles. But, at the same time, I also believe that the actual river at which Buddha bathed, was the old bed of the GhAgi, which is now called the Anhei, and I have already explained that the name AnheA is most probably derived from the Hindi ahdnd, to bathe ; and that anhdn (bathing) is the same as the Sanskrit asndn. I have already stated that the principal or most extensive mound of ruins, which I have identified as part of the ancient city of PAwA, is called Chetiyaon Dih, on which there is also a village called Chetiyaon. Now I believe this name Chetiyaon to be derived from the word Chaitya, meaning a Buddhist temple ; and therefore Chetiyaon may be a corruption of Chaitya-vana, meaning the Chaitya-grove. And it is remarkable that Chetiyaon Dih is still covered with a dense forest. With regard to the name of PAwA I think it may be ‘derived from the Sanskrit pAwan, meaning purification, and also holy, pure, sacred. Close to the west of Cheti¬ yaon, there is a village called Patkaoli, which might per¬ haps be connected with the name of PAwA. In the Tibetan Buddhist chronicles, PAwA is called Dig-pachan. Now I find that the Tibetan word pachan means town, or place, or residence, or habitation • and I believe that the Tibetan word dig means pure, holy, hallowed; and therefore the Tibetan Dig-pachan might correspond to a Sanskrit PAwan-pur, or PAwannagara, or Pawan-alaya,—literally place of purifica¬ tion. I have not here given any particular description nor the result of my survey of the ruins at Chetiyaon, or of the ruined stupa near it, at Fajila, as I intend to reserve all such particulars for my regular special Report. But the site of ancient PAwa includes a large circle of mounds and ruins, within a radius of 3 miles from Chetiyaon as a centre. SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 35 The whole of these ruined sites may be enumerated as follows:— 1. The ruined stftpa, &c., at Fajila. 2. Chetiyaon Dih. 3. Asmanpur Dih, south. 4. Dhanaha, south-west. 5. Nandwa, west-south-west. 6. Patkaoli and Sareya, west. 7. Gangi Tikar, north. 8. Karmaini, north-east. 9. Jharmatiya, east-north-east. 10. Mound between Patharwa, Ahladpur and Sidhaoli, east. 11. Mound at Mir Bih&r, east-south-east. 12. Banbera, south-east. 11. Laoriya Naonadgarh .—From Chetiyaon, in the beginning of the month of December, I proceeded towards the Gandak River, or Naraini, as it is more generally called ; and I crossed the river at the Pipra Ghat, and then pro¬ ceeded thence northwards to Laoriya Naonadgarh. 36 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, REPORT OF OPERATIONS DURING THE SEASON OF 1877 - 78 . 12. Mounds near Lauriya .—General Cunningham had already visited and made a survey of this place some years before; and I merely went there, by his instructions, in order to excavate some of the great mounds there, which he had not excavated. Of these mounds I excavated three; but as General Cunningham has already fully described these mounds, as well as the whole place, and therefore it would be totally superfluous for me to describe them again, I shall consequently confine myself to my own personal operations, observations, and discoveries. The first of the great mounds at Laoriya which I com¬ menced to excavate, was one in the range which runs east and west, and about 45 feet in height, which is marked E in General Cunningham’s report. After having ascer¬ tained the exact centre of the mound, I commenced at the top, exactly over the centre, intending to excavate downwards and also outwards towards the west; and I also commenced an excavation at the foot of the west side, in order to meet the excavation from the top. I had not gone very far in my excavation at the foot of the west side of the mound, until I met with an ancient brick wall, which sloped very much inwards, on its outer side, with a batter ; and at the foot of the wall, at the depth of about 4 feet below the surface of the sloping or rising ground, I came upon a narrow pavement or terrace of brick, about 3 or 4 feet in breadth more or less, at an average; and outside and below that, or beyond it to the west, at the further depth of from i-| feet to 2| feet, I came upon another pavement, the extent of which I could not ascertain, but which appeared to extend westwards, down under the level of the adjoining field which was under cultivation. The upper narrow pave¬ ment, or terrace, was perhaps about even with, or a little below, the lowest level of the surrounding fields ; but the lower SARAN, AND GHA 7 .IPUR. 37 pavement lay considerably below the level of the fields,— probably about 3 feet below the general level. The sloping wall, which rose from the upper narrow pavement or terrace, was about 5 feet in height at one part, and ap¬ parently about 5 feet in thickness at its base. But by scraping into the sides of the mound at its foot, at various points, I found that the remains of this wall varied in height, being sometimes less and sometimes more than the height I have given ; and in one place it was entirely gone,—espe¬ cially on the right or south side of my excavation,-—where the villagers had taken away the bricks year after year. I found that this wall had a curve horizontally, as well as a slope or batter inwards ; and that it was evidently the remains of a circular wall which had encircled the whole mound; and from its sloping inwards with a batter, and varying in height irregularly, just as more or less of its ruins remained, it also became evident to me that it was simply the remnant of an outer casing of brick masonry, which had originally covered or encased the whole mound; and that therefore it must originally have been a stfipa which was composed of earth interiorly, and covered over with a brick casing ex¬ teriorly. And I may remark that I have found that this must also have been the case with several other stfipas of the most ancient kind, which I have come across in various places. For no doubt the earliest stupas were simply earthen barrows: the next, a little less ancient, earthen mounds, encased with brick exteriorly : and the third, or still later sort, solid mounds composed of brick entirely. As therefore this particular mound at Laoriya was covered with fragments of brick, on the sloping surface of its sides, from top to bottom, it is evident that the scattered bricks on its surface were simply all that remained of the debris of the upper part of the outer brick casing, which had been gradually removed, in the course of ages, by successive generations of the inhabitants. But from the direction of the angle of the slope of what still actually remained of the brick casing in situ at the foot of the mound, it also became evident to me that the original stftpa, when perfect with its outer brick 38 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, casing, must have been much higher than 45 feet ; and I calculated that its original height could not have been less than about 60 feet. As the mounds in the principal range which runs from north to south, two of which are the highest of all the mounds at Laoriya, are entirely composed of earth, or clay only without any vestige of brick whatever, it is clear (in accordance with ray previous argument) that they must be more ancient than, or prior in date to, the mounds in the range which runs from east to west, all of which are more or less covered with fragments of brick, which latter, as I have previously explained, I believe to be the debris left from a former outer casing of brick masonry. But now I must return again to finish my account of the excavation of the brick-covered mound marked E in General Cunningham’s Report. As I have said, P excavated the mound down from the centre of the top, as well as inwards from the foot of its western side. The width of the cutting of the excavation which I made was about 12 feet, ot a little more than that in some places. When the excavation ftom the top had met the excavation from the side, I then carried the excavation, in the inner half of it only, to a con¬ siderable depth, and to below the level of the fields outside, until I came to wet clay, and found that I was evidently reaching water, after which I gave up excavating. Indeed, I had already received a practical and significant warning that it was not safe to prosecute the excavation any further ; for one night when the workmen were of course, and happily, absent, a great part of the northern side of the excavation fell in, with a tremendous crash and rumble. I then was so foolhardy as to have all the earth which had fallen in carried out, and the place cleared for work again ; and I commenced to continue the excavation again to a greater depth. But a few days afterwards, when the workmen were fortunately at their dinner, in a mango grove, at some distance from the place, nearly the whole of the northern side of the excava¬ tion fell in, with a tremendous roar like thunder, and made the ground around vibrate with the concussion. This settled SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 39 the matter ! The Yakshas of the Chetiy&ni of the Vrijis were evidently in league against me; and so I had perforce to give the matter up. The extent and danger of this excavation may be realised when I state that, above the further inner end and lowest part, of an inwardly descending excavation, affording only a long narrow passage a little over 12 feet in width, there rose a perpendicular wall of earth about 55 feet in height, ready to fall upon the men at work below at a moment’s notice, without any possibility of their having either the time or the means of escaping. ft may now naturally be asked—what I found, after all this tremendous excavation? Did I find the gigantic bones of a Vriji king, sepulted in an iron or leaden sarcophagus ? or what? Alas! then, lam sorry to have to confess that I found nothing, or next to nothing! Yet, not altogether nothing, either ; as I at least found signs and traces sufficient to lead me to the conclusion that this great mound was a monument of human sepulture ; but that it was not the tomb of any one individual in particular, but rather a pile gradually accumulated layer by layer, and containing the scattered ashes of many individuals, perhaps those of a whole family or generation. In the course of gradually excavating the mound down¬ wards from the top, I came at first upon a few masses or accumulations of brick here and there. Below that, I came to somewhat yellowish earth, or a mixture of sand and clay. Below that, I came to earth or clay of a slightly different colour, and harder and stiffer to dig; though the earth on the north side of the cutting was from the first much more loose and sandy, which was probably the cause of that side only eventually falling in. Below the former, I came to earth which contained here and there a few scattered fragments of pottery. Below the last, I began rather more frequently to meet with fragments of pottery, with occasionally also a little ash (perhaps bone ash), and a few pieces of charcoal, mixed with the earth. Below that, I met with somewhat larger and thicker fragments of pottery, and also some decided REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, 4 0 bone ash in small quantities, and a few fragments of bone, though the last were very few and scattered. From this, downwards, I continued to meet with much the same ; though, strange to say, in one place I found some flakes of something very like plaster! At length I came to stronger, or harder and stiffer, layers of clay, of a darker colour, containing here and there some loose ashy accumulations of a lighter or greyish colour; and here also I found some veritable frag¬ ments of bone, grey ashes, some pieces of charcoal, and fragments of thick coarse ancient pottery ; and also a very few particles of iron totally dissolved with corrosion. But I could not find any trace of either a grave, or a cist, or a coffin ; nor of any one single, or special, entire sepulture; nor anything like a human skeleton, either whole or in part. In short, while it is very possible or even probable, that this great mound may have been the receptacle of the scattered ashes of many, it most certainly was not the tomb of any one person ; and therefore the height of the mound was no index whatever of the dignity of any one individual whose ashes might be interred beneath it; but the height of this mound, and of all such mounds, probably rather depended upon, or resulted from, the number of the interments which were made in it ! I might, indeed, have suspected that this would turn out to be the case, from the experience which I derived, or rather the results which I obtained, from opening a comparatively small sepulchral mound, near Deosa, in Rajputana, and which (as will be seen from my Report on that place) contained the bone ashes and funeral urns of numerous individuals in several separate and successive deposits. Now when the cutting of the excavation in the great Ifao- riya mound had reached down to the depth of about 30 feetj—and afterwards, again when the cutting had reached a depth of about 40 feet,—I went purposely to view and examine, and scrutinise most narrowly, the fresh sections thus exposed to view; and when I looked up at the lofty cliff- like perpendicular wall of earth towering up before me, 1 could plainly discern that the earthy materials of which the SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 41 mound was composed, were not homogeneous, but that the mound was really composed of successive horizontal layers of earth, one above the other, and varying or differing from one another in their shades of colour. The lines of demar¬ cation, between the layers, thus caused by the difference in the shades of colour of the various layers, were very distinct when the cutting was fresh. But after the perpendicular surface of the cutting had been for some time exposed to the weather, and also to several heavy storms of wind and rain, succeeded by scorching heat, the lines of demarcation between the various superimposed layers of earth, of course, naturally enough, became much less distinct, and even much faded. But nevertheless there they were ! They still existed in reality, and practically, in the body of the mound ; and any new or fresh cutting would show them again, just as dis¬ tinct as before. These different and successive various- coloured layers off earth varied in thickness from about a foot to about feet, and in some cases 2 feet or more. At first I was inclined to account for the formation of these regular, wonderfully uniform, and perfectly horizontal layers of earth, differing from one another in their shades of colour,—and also in their quality and in their comparative and varying solidity or looseness of substance,—by suppos¬ ing that each separate layer might have been composed of a forced contribution of earth, obtained from the inhabitants of some one particular district,—or, in other words, that the several layers were composed, respectively, of contributions of earth obtained from just so many several different dis¬ tricts,—at the command of some paramount monarch; and that as the earth derived from one particular district, to form one layer, would naturally differ, in colour and quality, from the earth obtained from another and different district, to form another layer, this would account for the fact of the layers differing from one another, in their shades of colour and in their degrees of quality or texture,—or, in short, in the mineral and chemical substances of which the various earths were composed. But these conditions would require that the whole mound should have been constructed all at one 42 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, time, and under the directions of one single contemporary rnasterhand. (And as it took me nearly four months to cut a mere slice of earth, as it were, out of the side of a mound 45 feet in height, how long, may 1 ask, would it take to bring all the earth there, and to construct the whole of such a mound ?) While, on the contrary, as I have shown, two of these mounds, on excavation, turned out not to be the tomb of any one particular person at all; but they appeared rather each to have been places of sepulture for many, or the common receptacles for the ashes of numerous different individuals; the various successive interments perhaps extending over a long period, during which several generations may have passed away ! Consequently, after inaturer consideration, I am now in¬ clined to think that the various layers of earth of which the mound was composed, were obtained by scraping off the alluvial surface soil, up the surrounding plain, at various and comparatively distant periods of time. And as the plu¬ vial water channels, always changing their courses, would in various successive years bring down with them various •kinds of soil, in the formation of the alluvium which the plu¬ vial waters gradually spread over the low flat plain, then each succeeding generation would find a different coloured and different kind of surface soil laid down for them, where¬ with to add a new sepulchral layer of earth for the interment of the ashes of their dead. But as one horizontal layer of earth, of say about 2 feet in thickness, spread over such a large surface as that contained within the horizontal circum¬ ference of the mound, at any rate up to half its height, would contain a great number of interments of the mere ashes of the dead, it would not be necessary to add another layer until that layer had become as full of the ashes of the dead as might be deemed proper. And thus one of these layers of earth might contain the remains of more than one genera¬ tion, or perhaps those of several; the lowest layers, near the base of a conical mound, of course having a larger area than the upper ones, and would therefore contain a greater quantity of remains ; while the upper layers having a less SARAN, AND GMAZIPUR. 43 circumference, and being somewhat inconveniently situated from the height to which people had to ascend to them would have to be made thicker, in order to contain any great number of remains, and in order to save the trouble of con¬ structing a new layer until after some years had elapsed. And this superior thickness of the upper layers I actually observed in the largest mound which I excavated ! Moreover, this gradual and intermittent surface scraping theory of mine would also entirely do away with a great apparent difficulty, which was pointed out by General Cun¬ ningham in his Keport, and which appears to have somewhat staggered him, namely, the question as to where such an immense quantity of earth as would be required to construct even one of these huge mounds at Laoriya, all at once, could possibly have been obtained from, as General Cunningham could not find any great hollows in the ground near at hand from which so much earth could have been excavated, with the exception only of the beds of two pluvial water-courses in the neighbourhood. But if we suppose that it was only necessary, after various considerably long intervals of time, to scrape off some of the yearly accumulating alluvial surface soil of the plain, in order to form only one of the successive layers of the mound, and that it would not be necessary to collect any more earth to form another layer, for a long period afterwards, or not until the layer already formed had become entirely filled up with deposits of the ashes of the dead of more than one generation, then the supposed diffi¬ culty vanishes entirely! But as these mounds are all of a conical shape, and have sloping sides which run up nearly to a point,—or generally, at least, so far, at any rate, that only a flat top of a very small diameter is left,—the uppermost area would at length be¬ come too small and circumscribed for purposes of interment; the flat top would be left as it was; and then this mound would be given up and forsaken; but in some cases, as I have shown (but probably only if the community or tribe could afford it), the mound would afterwards be built over exteriorly with a casing of brick masonry. Then, after that. nmsTff REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR 44 another earthen mound would be commenced, in the same gra¬ dual manner, beginning at first with a single layer of earth, collected together in a circular form ; and probably this would be done, by preference, either on a spot which was al¬ ready naturally somewhat elevated above the general level of the plain, or else on apiece of artificially-made ground, which had been raised and smoothly levelled, in the form of a wide flat-topped terrace of earth, in order to serve as a good found¬ ation for a row of these sepulchral mounds. And of this nature appear to be the long terrace-like elevated ridges of ground on which the great mounds of Laoriya are situated. The remarks which I have made above, relating to the mode of the formation of the mound E which I first exca¬ vated, will equally apply, pari passu et passim, to all the other great mounds at Laoriya,—specially to the largest of these mounds, which are entirely composed of earth, in the other range, which runs from north to south,—and in parti¬ cular to another mound, in the last-named range, about 25 feet in height, which I also excavated. This second mound which I excavated is probably that .which is marked G in General Cunningham’s Report, in the middle line which runs from north to south. General Cun¬ ningham estimated the height of the mound marked G at 20 feet; but if this is really the mound which I excavated, all I can say is that, by actual excavation, I found the real perpendicular height of the mound at the centre to be about 25 feet from the level of the fields which lay to the east of the mound. This mound was composed entirely of hard clay of the usual colour,—that is not white clay, but clay of a sort of yellowish-brown colour,—that is generally, on the whole; for in this mound the lines of demarcation of the successively superimposed horizontal layers of clay were very sharply and distinctly defined, indeed ; and each layer dif¬ fered somewhat in colour from the others above and below it. I excavated this mound from the centre of the top down¬ wards, and on the east side from the foot inwards, in the same manner as the other ; and the further I went down, the harder and more compact became the layers of clay, until SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 45 at length they became so hard and compact and distinct in their formation from those above and below them, that great long pieces or flakes of each layer could be lifted off entire. Each layer of this clay had evidently been regularly kneaded and tamped, or beaten down, when in a wet state, until each layer had become of a consistency almost as hard as layers of some kind of clay-stone. On the upper surfaces of some of these tough and compact layers of clay, and particularly on the lowest layers, there were the marks or indentations of human feet, which showed that the clay, when in a wet state, had been firmly beaten down by the agency of human feet. Scattered throughout various parts of the cutting which 1 made in this mound, but particularly in the lower part of the excavation, and towards the centre, I found small quantities of grey ashes, and a few fragments of bone, and bits of char¬ coal, and a very few bits of rude pottery. But 1 could not find any grave nor any cist, nor any skeleton, nor any separate distinct interment whatever. At the inner end of the cutting which I made, where it reached the centre of the mound, I made a further excavation to the depth of about io feet below the level of the neigh¬ bouring fields, until I came to deep water, which reached to the waists of the men who were digging. The total perpen¬ dicular height of th^P^art of the excavation which reached the centre of the motnpfi was about 35 feet from top to bottom. The third nppnd which I excavated was a small one, beyond or to the west of the outer range, and considerably to the west of the second mound which I excavated. This small mound may have been about 10 feet in perpendicular height above the level of the low ground to the west of it. I excavated this mound in the same manner as the other, and I carried the excavation down to a considerable depth below the level of the neighbouring low ground, until I came to water. The whole depth of this excavation, at the centre, was nearly 20 feet. This mound was c omposed of thick layers of earth and clay, impregnated with saline matter which produced a white efflorescence of salt. I could not find any remains at all, of any kind, in this mound. 46 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, # I also visited the great mound of Naonadgarh, and made as searching an examination of it as possible. But when I visited it, it was so densely covered with thick jangahespe¬ cially- on the top of it, that it was almost impossible to make one’s way through it. A personal examination of this great mound has filled me with grave doubts as to whether it ever was a fort at all, as General Cunningham has supposed. That is to say, the conclusion which I have come to is that the original purpose of this great mound, when it was first constructed, was not that of a fort, but rather that of a great national monument, or something in the nature of Silbury Hill in England, which is an artificial mound made by the hands of men. The perpendicular height of the great Silbury mound is 107 feet, and the diameter of the area on the top of the mound is 120 feet, while the length of the slope, from the edge of the top down to the foot, is 316 feet. The per¬ pendicular height of the mound called Naonadgarh is about 80 feet, and the area on the top of it is about 250 feet square. The great mound of Alyattes, in Asia Minor, is still larger than Silbury Hill. The great battle mound of Thermopyloe , follows next in height and bulk after Silbury Hill. It is true that the great mound called Naonadgarh is covered with fragments of brick, and there are traces of the foundations of at least one small brick building on the top of it. But as several of the genuine and undoubted sepulchral mounds at Laoriya are also covered with fragments of brick, and some have even traces of brick walls, the mere presence of brick alone does not make the Naonadgarh mound a fort. What I hold is this, that the area on the top of the Naonad¬ garh mound is not sufficient for the purposes of a fortress. The area would be too small to accommodate even a suffi¬ cient number of men to defend it; and it would be scarcely sufficient to contain even a respectable sized palace, with all its belongings. As a matter of curiosity, I also made an excavation at the base of the great edict pillar of Asoka, at Laoriya. I carried the excavation down to the depth of a little over 10 feet, until I came to a stone platform, or basement, on which the pillar SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 47 stood; and I then found that I could insert the blade of a knife between the lower butt end of the pillar and the stone basement on which it rested. At the depth of about 2 feet below the surface of the ground, I found that there was a narrow rounded edged projection of the stone, encircling the pillar like a ring. This projection was about 2 inches in thickness. A little further down, below the projection, there was the figure of a peacock engraved in the stone; the figure being about 4 inches in length. As the peacock was the symbol of the Moriyas and Mayuriyas, I took the figure of a peacock to be the stamp of Asoka Mauriya, who erected this pillar. Down to the circular projection, the pillar was smooth; but below that, the stone became rough, showing the marks of the chisel. The stone basement or foundation on which the pillar rested, I found to be a square platform, which extended out¬ wards to the distance of about 2 feet beyond the bottom of the pillar, on four sides. Along the outer edges of this stone platform, I found some long ancient pieces of S 41 timber lying embedded close against the stone. I filled in the excavation again, most carefully ; and placed blocks of kankar and bricks at the bottom, and then threw the earth in on the top of them, and I raised up a sloping mound round the base of the pillar, and covered it with turf. There had been a bamboo railing constructed round about the pillar, by some former Collector of the District; but as it had got into a somewhat dilapidated condition, and was besides somewhat injured by the diggers, I had an en¬ tirely new and very strong and high fence or railing con¬ structed round the pillar, somewhat on the stockade prin¬ ciple. 1 j. Mounds near the Harhi or ffarhd Nadi and the Maosohimdkhand Ndla, to the west of Laoriya Naonad- garh. —At the distance of from 3^ to 6 miles to the west of Laoriya Naonadgarh, and both along and between two old river channels called the Harhi or Harhd Nadi and the upper part of the Maosohimdkhand Ndla, I saw hundreds 48 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, , of small grass-covered mounds, or tumuli, or more properly barrows, varying from 2^ feet and 3 feet to 5, 6, 7, or even 8 feet in perpendicular height. If I had had time to examine the whole of these numerous and widely scattered barrows, I might possibly have found some as high as 10 feet, but they more commonly varied between 3 and 5 feet. These barrows were mostly of a subconical shape, but some few were shaped like a cup or a bowl turned upside down. They were scattered here and there over the undulating grassy plain, literally in scores, if not in hundreds, in the locality which I have indicated, and, from all I could see, may probably extend still further, over a considerable tract of country, amounting to several miles. As I have previously intimated, the majority of these mounds are situated near or along the banks of an old river bed, which divides into two branches to the west of Laoriya ; the eastern or iarger branch being called the Harhi or HarhA Nadi, and the western branch being called the Maosohi- mAkhand Nala. Similarly the great barrows of Laoriya are situated near the northern bank of the TurkAha NAla, and . only about two-thirds of a mile to the south of another larger water channel, the upper or northern portion of which appears to be called either the Sikrahna or the Mas An Nadi. Now I believe that there was a purpose in this, which bore reference to the convenience of water being near at hand for the ablutions connected with the cremation of corpses ; the crema¬ tion being therefore performed as near as convenient to the banks of such water channels, and the ashes afterwards deposited in the mounds close at hand. But if so, it may be asked why the cremations and the raising of the sepulchral mounds should not have been done on the banks of the great Gandak or Naraini River, which flows at a moderate distance to the west. But the banks of a large river like the Gandak are liable to be cut away by its encroachments and the frequent changing of its course during floods; while there would not be the same danger or objection near the banks of smaller and more sluggish water-courses, which would only be thoroughly filled to any considerable extent during the rainy SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 49 season, and yet retain some water (perhaps by the help of dams) during the rest of the year. But when I some time afterwards recrossed the Gandak River westwards by the Manpur Gh&t, I was utterly astonished to find on the plain to the west of the river, which was bare of grass but sprinkled with stunted JMu trees, an immense number of bare conical mounds of earth which had all been constructed by a large kind of black ant! Shall we therefore, on such grounds, be so bold as to attribute the other mounds on the east side of the river to the labours of ants ? Surely not! Yet the resemblance between the two is curious ! I have no doubt that thetumuli or barrows, both at and in the neighbourhood of Laoriya Navandgarh, are, as General Cunningham supposes, the Wajjian ChetiySni, or Chetiyas of the Vrijis, referred to by Buddha in a conversation with Ananda, which is quoted from Tumour at page 449 of Cunningham’s Ancient Geography of India. Therein Buddha is made to say that the Wajjians, or Vrijis, maintain respect, reveience, and make offerings to these “ ChetiyAnis.” General Cunningham further quotes from a Ceylonese authority an explanation that these Chetiydni were Yakhat- thdnAni, that is, Yaksha-sthdnas, or places where the Yakshas were worshipped, who, as the attendants of Kuvera, the god of riches, were the guardians of his treasures. The same author further remarks that the chief residence of these Yakshas was called Alakapura; and that somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Gandak there was really a city named Alakappo, inhabited by a people named Balaya, or Buluka, who obtained a share of Buddha’s relics.* Now about 5 miles to the west of Laoriya Navandgarh, there is a place called Ldkher&j, near which there are some traces of mounds of ruins. And about 5! miles to the north- north-west half north from Laoriya there is another place also called L&kher&j (near another place called Deorwa, where there is a temple). Could either of these places possibly have been the site of the ancient Alakappo ? # See u Cunningham’s Ancient Geography of India,” page 450 . vol. xxn. R 5 ° REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, I also fancied that in the names of some places in the neighbourhood, I had discovered some trace of that of the Balayas or Bulukas. For instance, only about a mile to the north of the westerly LAkherAj, there is a place called Balahya (misprinted Bhutuheea for Buluheea, in the maps) ; and about 4§ miles to the north of that there is another place called Baluhi (spelt Buloohee in the maps). There are also several other somewhat similar namesof places in the neighbourhood, such as BaliyA, Baldiha, and Baluwa, &c. ; and about x 5 miles to the east-north-east from Laoriya there is a town called Balthar. 14. jfdnki Kot , or Janki Garh .—The name of this ancient fort is misspelt Chankee in the maps, but its real name is JAnki. The JAnki Kot, or Garh, is an ancient, lofty, but artifici¬ ally elevated fort, situated about 11 miles as the crow flies, to the north of Laoriya Naonadgarh, but of course in travelling by the kachcha roads and paths the distance becomes considerably greater, ft is situated near and to the west of the ancient road leading to NipAl, from Laoriya Naonadgarh, Betiya, Kesariya, and Besarh or Vaisali. One of the many small rivers of the Tarai flows to the north and east of the foot of the fort. I believe it to be called the DftngAyi Nadi. Further up the same river, and about 6 miles to the north¬ west from JAnki, there is a fort, or kot, near a village called Chikni; but it did not seem to be very old. The JAnki Fort is situated on elevated ground, and for this reason 1 believe its summit to be altogether somewhat higher than that of Navandgarh or Naonadgarh, or probably about. 90 feet above the low plain surrounding the high ground. The flat area on the top of Janki Garh is consider¬ ably greater than that on the top of Navandgarh ; and it has the remains of some ancient buildings on the top of it; and on the east side there are the remains of a sort of ruined causeway, or steps, leading up to the top. There are also ruined remains of fortification walls which once encircled the top of the fort. SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 5, Measurements, as usual, were taken of this fort, but I regret to say that owing to great sickness in my camp (every one being ill with fever) the measurements were somehow mislaid or lost, in the confusion of packing up my papers in haste in order to leave that fever-stricken region. The natives of that part of the country said that there was a tradition to the effect that JAnki Garh was of the same age as and founded by the same ancient people who raised Navandgarh, who would therefore probably be either the Vrijis or the Balayas or Bulukas, who may have been a tribe of the Vriji nation. I myself am ready to believe that, as far as the earthworks are concerned, they may both be the work of the ancient Vrijis ; but I think that the buildings of stone of which there are ruined remains on JAnki Garh may more probably be attributable to a later age, perhaps consi¬ derably later. 75.. Discovery of a new Edict Pillar of As ok a, at Rdm - -purwdparsd , in the Tarai, miles to the North of Betiya. —This newly-discovered edict pillar of Asoka was found buried in the ground in a slanting position, showing only a portion of the capital above ground in the Tarai about 36 miles to the east of the upper part of the Gandak River. The exact position of this pillar is longitude 84° 34' E., latitude 27 0 15' 45" N. ; 32! miles to the north of Betiya,’ 2o| miles to the north-north-east-half-north from Laoriya Naonadgarh, io£ miles to the north-north-east from JAnki Garh, and only 4 miles to the south of the first range of hills, which are called the Someshwar Range. The manner in which I came to hear of it was that some TM.rus, who happened to come down to Laoriya, told me that in the locality which they frequented to the north in the Tarai, there was a stone sticking in the ground which they called Bhim’s LAt, and which they said resembled the top or capital of the pillar at Laoriya ! I at once sus¬ pected that it might, probably be a portion of a pillar of the same kind, and might possibly turn out to be an actual edict pillar of Asoka, perhaps lying partially buried in the ground, or in rubbish or debris of some kind. K I VOL. XXII. REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, 5 2 Although I had heard that the locality was most un¬ healthy, and a most dangerous place for my native servants to go to on account of its malarious climate and bad water, I nevertheless immediately made arrangements for an explor¬ ation of the spot ; and there, sure enough, at the distance of about 2,240 feet, or less than half a mile, to the west-north¬ west from a village called R 4 mpurw 4 and near the eastern bank of a small river called the Hariora or Haribora Nadi, the upper portion, to about 3 feet in length, of the capital of a pillar, closely resembling that of the Laoriya one, was found sticking out of the ground in a slanting position, and pointing towards the north, as if the pillar had fallen down in a slanting position towards the north, and had become gradually earthed over with alluvium nearly up to its top. It no doubt was originally surmounted with the figure of a lion for a pinnacle, like the pillar at Laoriya; but that was gone, and could not be found anywhere, and only the bell-shaped capital remained above ground, and even that showing only one side. I immediately had an excavation made in the form of a long trench running from north to south on each side of the pillar. The excavation reached the depth of 8 feet 8 inches at the southern end of the trench, where we came upon water, and the water percolated through the soil into the trench so fast, that it was not possible to excavate any deeper. I had however reached the lower part of the pillar, having exposed about 40 feet of its length, measur¬ ing in a slanting direction from it's top down to that lowest visible portion of the pillar which was embedded in the ground at the bottom of the southern end of the trench, and sur¬ rounded by water. The circumference of the lowest part of the pillar below the inscription measured about 11 feet, while the circumference near the top was about 8 feet. At a slanting distance upwards, from the lowest visible part of the pillar, of about 11 to 12 feet, I found an inscrip¬ tion in two parts on opposite sides of the pillar. The larger portion of the inscription measured about 4 feet 7 inches in length along the pillar, and about 4 feet 6 inches in a transverse direction round the pillar. My men took impressions of the whole inscription, including both por¬ tions of it, while standing up to their waists in water. On examining the impressions of the inscription which were taken, I found that it was in the Lat character, and that it was simply another version of the same edicts of Asoka which are inscribed on the pillar of Laoriya Navandgarh. The inscription on the R 4 mpurwA Pillar presents us with another example of the use of the letter " L ” everywhere instead of the letter “ R ” ; there not being a single “ R ” in the whole inscription from beginning to end, as may be seen from its commencement, which reads as “ Dev&nain-piye Piyadasi L&ja hevam Aha.” I think some means might be taken by Government for the preservation of this pillar. To the north, east, and west of the pillar, there are the remains of some brick ruins buried in the ground, and some very large ancient bricks were dug out of the soil. At the distance of about 850 feet to the south of the pillar, there are two mounds standing about 370 feet apart, east and west, and there are broken bricks scattered over the surface of the mounds. The easterly one of the two looked as if it might be the remains of a stfiipa. About midway between the two mounds there is the shattered stump of a stone pillar of some kind standing erect in the ground. This shattered stump is now only about 6 feet in height, but about 9J feet in circumference at base. The Th&rus of the neighbourhood tell a curious and absurd story to account for the origin of these two mounds, with the broken pillar standing between them. They say that Bhima was carrying two loads of earth in a banghy, or in two baskets, or tokris, suspended by ropes, called sikahar, to a pole, called bangha, supported across his shoulder, and that when he reached this spot, the pole broke, and the two loads of earth consequently fell down on the ground on either side, and thus formed the two mounds ; while the broken pole stuck in the ground in the midst, and became petrified, and 54 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, thus formed the broken pillar which stands midway between the two mounds ! After this work was over, all my servants became ill with Tarai fever, as well as myself also (though in a lesser degree ) ; and so I was obliged to recross the Gandak west¬ wards, and took up my quarters in a deserted house on the banks of the “ Jarahi Nadi ” (the name of which literally means the feverish or agueish river), near Parauna; and there the whole of my people as well as myself got more and more fever, and eventually two of my people died, and after¬ wards two more men whom I had employed died also ! This was enough for a season, certainly ! Before entirely quitting my notice of this last discovered edict pillar of Asoka, and finally concluding my present report, I wish to say a few words concerning the fact that four different pillars of Asoka are now known to be situated along the line of the old north road which led from Magadha to Nipal, or from the Ganges opposite PAtaliputra or Patna, through BesArh or VaisAli, and Kesariya, in a northern or rather north-north-westerly direction, keeping at a moderate distance to the east of the Gandak, to the Tarai and hills of NipAl. The first of these pillars stands at Bakhra, a short dis¬ tance to the north of BesArh, the ancient. VaisAli. There is no inscription of Asoka on this pillar, but there can be no doubt that it was intended to be inscribed. The second of these pillars is at Laoriya Ara-RAj, 20 miles to the north-west of Kesariya, and 19 miles to the south- south-east from Betiya. This pillar bears a beautifully perfect inscription, in two parts, of the edicts of Asoka. The third pillar stands close to the north-east of the vil¬ lage of Laoriya-navandgarh or Naonadgarh, 15 miles to the north-north-west of Betiya. This pillar bears a beautifully perfect inscription, in two parts, of the edicts of Asoka. The fourth pillar is the fallen and buried pillar discovered by me close to R&mpurwA, or R 4 mpurwA-ParsA, 21J miles to the north-north-east-half-north from the pillar at Laoryia Naonadgarh, or 22$ miles from the village of that name, and SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 55 only 4 miles to the south of the foot of the Sorneshwar Range of hills. This pillar, as has been seen, also bears a very per¬ fect inscription of the edicts of Asoka. Now it is evident that the inscriptions on these pillars were intended to be read by passing travellers and pilgrims proceeding along the old north road from the Ganges oppo¬ site P&taliputra. to Nip&l. I should therefore expect to find either another pillar, or else a rock-cut inscription, still fur¬ ther north somewhere in the Nipal Tarai. The RAmpurwa Pillar is situated exactly on the ancient north road leading into Nip&l. From thence there are three passes leading across the second range of hills, called the Sidra Range, into Nip&l, namely, a western pass, a central one, and an eastern one. The western pass is called the Churiya Gh&ti. The central pass is the roughest and most difficult one; it is called the Thori Gh&ti, and runs along the Khdi Nadi. The eastern pass is called the Goramasaon or Goramasiwan Gh&ti. I should expect to find another inscription of Asoka somewhere in or just beyond one or other of these three passes through the Sidra Hills in Nipal. I have above described one of the lines followed by a series of inscribed edict pillars of Asoka; and I have done so be¬ cause I believe the inscriptions of Asoka to have been pur¬ posely placed, at intervals, along certain different and diver¬ gent ancient travelled lines of road running through the country, and to have commenced or started from the two ends of a base line running east and west from P4taliputra (or Patna) to Kosarnbi near Allahabad. From the P&taliputra or eastern end, we have one line running northwards, through Vaisali and the two Laoriyas, to R 4 mpttrw 4 and the Nipal Hills. From the same starting point, we have another line running southwards, through Sahasar&m and Barabar, to R&mgarh in Sirguja; from whence two lines diverge, the one leading south-south-eastwards to Dhauli and Jaugada in Orissa, and the other leading southwestwards to Deotek to the south-east of Nagpur, in the ancient kingdom of Maha-Kosala. From the Kosambi or western end of the base line, we VIQNl *° (< REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, have one line leading south-south-westwards, through Bhar- hut to Rupnath ; and from thence turning westwards to San- chi, and running thence through Malwa, till it terminates at Girn&r, in Kathiawad, the ancient Saurashtra. From the same starting point, a solitary line runs north-westwards to BairAt in Alwar, the ancient Matsya. Again from the same starting point another line runs north-north-westwards, through Mirat to Kh&lsi, in the ancient kingdom of Srughna; and from thence north-westwards to Sh&hb&z Garhi in British Yhsufzai, to the north-east of Pesh 4 war, in the ancient king¬ dom of Udyrina. The enormous extent of country over which these inscrip¬ tions of Asoka are thus found to be scattered is a proof of the widely extended power and influence of that great Hindu mon¬ arch of India 1 Yet we cannot flatter ourselves that we have found anything like all the inscriptions of Asoka which must once have existed along each of these various divergent lines which have been pointed out. For, between the various points on those lines where inscriptions have been found, there is many a long hiatus where none have as yet been found, and no doubt many have been destroyed during the lapse of ages! I cannot sufficiently regret that severe sickness in my camp should have compelled me to cut short this tour, as I had intended to have continued my tour further eastwards, and to have visited a number of other places and ancient sites. But from among those places which it had been my intention to visit, I may select the following for notice, for the inform¬ ation of others:— 1. Dewa Dih, 4! miles to the east-north-east from the R&mpurw& Pillar. 2. Bui Kot, about 2 miles to the east-south-east from the R 4 mpurwet Pillar. 3. Bodh Barwa, about 16 miles to the north-north-east from Laoriya Naonadgarh. 4. A village called J&nki within the Nip&l boundary, 4-I miles to the east of Bodh Barwa. 5. Tola Budh Katin, Budh Pokhra, within the Nip&l SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 57 border respectively 2 miles and 4 miles to the east- north-east from Balthar. 6. Uncha Dih, about 11 miles to the north-north-east-half¬ north from Sugaoli. 7. Another Uncha Dih, about 6 miles to the north-north- east from Sugaoli. 8 . Harewa Barewa, mounds of ruins near village called Nonaor, nearly 14 miles to the north-east from Moti- hAri, and 7! to 8 miles to the south of Simraon. 9. Surajpur, 5^ miles to the south of Motih4ri. 10. Madhuban Bindr 4 ban, extensive mounds of ruins, about 10^ miles to the south-east-half-south from Motih4ri. n; Uncha Dih, about 4 miles to the south-south-west from Madhuban Bindraban. 12 . B 4 r 4 Shankar, about r7 miles to the east of Motih4ri. 58 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, REPORT OF OPERATIONS DURING THE SEASON OF 1.878-79. 16. Concluding notice of the Gorakhpur District.— my previous report I mentioned that on account of the whole of my camp being attacked with severe fever owing to the dele¬ terious climate of the Tarai region north-east of the Gandak, I recrossed the Gandak westwards, and not being able to move further, I took up my quarters in an empty house near a place called ShAhpur, on the Jar&hi River, to the east, of Paraona, where my men, and myself also, got more and more fever, until some of them died. I left that place as soon as I was sufficiently recovered to move, about the end of November. I then revisited the site of Kusinagara, near Kasya, and made some further ex¬ cavations there, on the M&tha Kuwar ka Kot. Numerous very small ruined brick stftpas had been uncovered there during my former excavations in the beginning of the previous year ; and some of the most ruined of these very small struc¬ tures came in the way of the excavations which I now made, and had to be removed. At the bottom of the centre of some of these small stftpas, I found a few small sculptures, or frag¬ ments of sculpture, enshrined. One of these was a sitting figure of Bhudha in dark bluish coloured stone, i foot 4 inches in height ; and on the back of the stone there was an inscrip¬ tion in the old Kutila character, consisting of the usual Bud¬ dhist formula, “ Ye Dharmma hetu, ” 8cc. I excavated and laid bare a further portion, on the south¬ west side, of the great basement or platform of masonry on which both, the temple and the stftpa of the Nirvana stand. I also made a deeper and more extensive excavation, to about from 5 to 8 and 13 feet in depth, round the north-east corner of the ruined basement of a great monastery on the MAtha Kuwar ka Kot, situated about 136 feet to the north-west of the temple of the NirvAna. An excavation of 13 feet in depth at the north-east corner of this ruined monastery showed that the wall had been built in exactly the same SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 59 style as that of the temple of the Nirvana, namely, with a batter, or slope inwards, caused by every third layer of bricks or so, receding inwards about i|- inches, or what native masons call a “ khaska.” In my former report on the Gorakhpur district I omitted to mention two inscriptions which I obtained. One of these consisted of two inscribed copper plates constituting one grant, found at “ GagahA, ” to the west side of the RApti River, about 21 miles to the south of Gorakhpur, and which I secured through the kindness of Mr. Lumsden, then Collector of that district. It is a grant of RAjya Pala, son of Govinda Chandra Rahtor, king of Kanaoj. The grant is dated in Samvat. 1199, or A.D. 1142. In the inscription, RAjya PAla is simply called MahArAja-putra, or son of the king, so that he was not reigning. It is known that his father Govinda Chandra was still reigning in A.D. 1162 ; and at Jaonpur General Cunningham discovered an inscription of his successor Vijaya Chundra dated in Samvat 1229 or A.D. 1172. If, therefore, RAjya PAla ever reigned at all, it must have been at some time in the middle of the ten years w'hich elapsed between A.D. 1 162 and 1172. In the second line of the first, plate, I read the names of Yaso-vigraha (the founder of the family), and Mahichan- dra ( * * * * vAmna, nAmna Yaso-vigraha ityu-dAra. Tatsuto ubhun-Mahichandra svandra vAmani bhanijam). In the third line, I read the name of Sri Chundra-devon- ripa. In the fourth line, I read the words Sri-mad GAvipurAdhirAjyam. In the eighth line, I read the name of RAjya Gajonarendra. From near the middle of the tenth line, and thence on to past the middle of the thirteenth line of the first plate, I read as follows : — Sacha parama bhattaraka mahArAjAdhirAja parameswara paramamaheswara nijiabhujopArjjina, Sri Kan- yakAbjadhipatya Sri Chandra Deva pAdAnudhyAtA; pa (ra) mabhattAraka mahArAjAdhirAja parameswara paramamAhes- wara Sri MadanapAla Deva pAdAnudhyAtA ; paramabhattAraka mahArAjAdhirAja parameswara paramamAheswarAswapati, gaja- pati narapati, rAjartayAdhipati ; vidhivardhijyo virAravArasyami REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR., (or rasyati ?), Sri Mad-Govinda chandra Deva pAdapadma sammatyA samasta r&ja prakriyopeta, MahArAjaputra Sri Mad- rAjya-pAla devya vijayi. In the fourteenth line of the first plate, I believe I can distinguish the name of the place Gagaha. The date is in the second line of the second plate, and reads as follows: Sumvat 1199, PhAlguna sudi u, Sanau. In the eleventh line of the second plate, I read the words “ Yam dharmmahetu nripAnarh kAle kAle pAlan yo bha vadbhi,” &c., &c. GagahA is an ancient site ; and there are mounds of ruins there. The other inscription is on a broken monolith pillar which was standing at BhAgalpur, on the Gorakpur side, or north-east bank, of the Ghaghra River, 4 miles below Mahil GhAt, and exactly opposite to TurtipAr. The inscrip¬ tion is much injured and defaced, and a great portion of the right side of it has been entirely broken away ; and a large piece has been broken out of the pillar. It is said to have been struck by lightning. The inscription consists of twenty-one lines. The letters are in a form of the Kutila character, and I should judge the age of the inscription to be about the close of the tenth or beginning of the eleventh century, A.D. I could not find any date, and it has probably been broken away. But some European has taken upon himself to decide the age of the inscription to his own satisfaction, and in a most public and ostentatious manner, for he has caused to be engraved on the pillar, below the old inscription, the words Circa A. D. 900, in very plain English letters 1 But whoever the European was who thus sought to perpetuate his dictum, I must beg to differ from him as to the date of the inscription, as I do not think it can be so old as 900 A.D. ; andi I do not believe it can be older than about the beginning of the eleventh century, or about a century later than the date ascribed to it. Above the top of the old inscription, some Hindu religious SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 6l devotee has engraved in large modem Nagari letters the words “ Baja. Jogi, ooi ” !* The total height of the pillar was about 17 feet, with a circumference of about 5 feet. It had a square base below, but the whole shaft is round. The capital is rather a thin stone vertically broad and flat horizontally, and gradual¬ ly decreasing step-fashion underneath. The local tradition about the pillar is that it was raised by R 4 ja Bhimala, an ancestor of the present R&jas of Majhaoli, who are of the Bisen tribe. Some time afterwards I received, through the kindness of the Collector of Gorakhpur, two small modern copper¬ plate grants obtained from a place called Chuatariyd, near the NipAl border. The language of the first portions of the in¬ scriptions, consisting of the invocation and dedication, &c., is Sanskrit; but the language of the body of the grants is in the northern or Nipalese form of the Bhojpuri dialect of the Hindi. The first plate is dated in Samvat 1836, or A.D. 1779, and the second plate is dated in Samvat 1845, or A.D. 1788. As a respectable specimen of the peculiar dialect in which the terms and conditions of the grants are written, I will here give a reading of the first plate. Invocation in Hindi, at top of plate :— Sri Ram I: Sri Bhaw&ni Ji rupi ke saujayat. Patra Sahi. Next follows a circular seal-shaped ornament, containing a variety of devices, namely, a kat&r,—a kat&r, leaf, lotus bud, spear-head, and dice box,—a fish, sankh, throne, the rnoon and stars, a flower and the sun,—all representing the insignia of the R&ja. Inscription in Sanksrit round the interior of the circle:—Swasti Sri Sad&-Siva chararia kama- tasy&-rana, Sri Man Mukund sena dev&n&m. # I read tins as another record of our old friend c< jMagalf] clhwaj [jogi] 007/ the figures 700 being misplaced. See Archaeological Survey Reports, Volume XVI, Plate 31.— A. Cunningham . 62 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, Sanskrit Dedication. Swasti Sriswara charana smarana purvaka rupa NArAya- nety&di vividha virudawali virdjm&nminolata Sri man-m&ha- r 4 j&dhir&j Sri Sri Sri Man Mukund Sen Bahidur devAnAm sadAsamar vijayinAm, Grant. Age, swasti sri, ChautariAsur Vir Sen ke hyA ka-lAng thuh maM pAt samet Asiphur-ko kuthi ghA sarv ahk virtti be talab kai dihal; utar wor Gandak-sandh; purv wor Jhainba- kholA; pachhiw wor KarAgadi-khola; dakhin-wAn Shukai, Net 4 sSndh; aur pachhim-bSi sakhuwS madhe phayS kandSrS samet. Asiphur-ko kuti ghS samm amal karai tekar siwSn • purv P&lhun-kholS; dakhin wor, DewarSli GhSt, ShSdyS- wodSr ; pSchhim KumbhidyA-kholS, JigSjor, Nets ; uttar wor, KameryS, PandhySrS sSiidh; kai dihal. Sajal, sankat, sapath, batursiwSn uchhinn kai dihal. Apane khatr jamS se chalan karahi. Samvat 1836. San 1187 sSl. PhSgun sudi 7. Roj 2 MakSm Butawali RSjdhSni subham. . As it may possibly be of use to the Government, as well as to the Civil Officers of the Gorakhpur District, to be able to identify the locality and extent of the land to which this grant refers, I may state that I believe I have been able to make out the boundaries of the land given in this grant. This land was given by Mukund Sen, an independent RSja of Butwal, in the NipSl TarSi, about 66 miles to the north of Gorakhpur. About 25 miles to the south of Butwal, there is a place called Mukundgarh, close to the British boundary, which was founded by this R&ja Mukund Sen. Eleven miles to the south-south-east-half-south from Mu¬ kundgarh, there is a village marked in the maps as Chau- turwa, or Chaotarwa, which must be the Chaotari4 of the copper-plate grant, and the same as the ChaotariyA which was mentioned as the place where the copper-plate was found, in the note of information, in Urdu, which I received along with it. The land was granted to a person called Vir Sen, chief of SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 63 ChaotaricL The name of the estate granted was Asiphur. I cannot find the name of this, place in the maps, but I believe I can find the boundaries of the estate. In the copper-plate there are two different statements of the boun¬ daries given. In the first of these two statements, we find that, a point styled Gandak-sAndh was a boundary to the north; and I find, for certain reasons, that this must be at a point situated at the commencement of an eastward bend of the Chhota Gandak River, about 3 miles to the south of Nichlaol; and I understand Gandak-sAndh to mean the edge or border of the Gandak, and that this must have been the north-eastern boundary corner of the estate. In the second statement of the boundaries, we find that two places called KameryA and PandhyArA-sAhdh were situated to the north; these must therefore be places on the northern and north¬ western boundaries of the estate, and I have identified the second with Pudaree, or PadAri, about 5 miles to the south¬ west of Nichlaol, and I have identified the first with Ku- murya, or Kamerya, about 8-| miles to the west-south¬ west from PadAri, and 9 miles to the east of Chaotarwa, unless, indeed, the phrase KameryA PandhyArA-sAhdh means KameryA on the border of the PandhyArA River, which in that case must be the name of a small river which still runs past KamaryA. Again, in the first statement of the boundaries in the copper-plate grant, we find that a place called NetA, or NetA-sAhdh, was situated to the south; and in the second statement, we find that a place called NetA was situated to the west. I take these two places to be the same, and I conclude that the simple name of the place was NetA, though coupled with the word sAhdh, in the first instance, and which I suppose to mean border. I have identified this with a village still called NetA, 9! miles due south of KamaryA, and 12 miles to the south¬ east from Chaotarwa, and consequently NetA must have been the south-western corner boundary of the estate. In the second statement of the boundaries, two places called DewarAli GhAt and ThAdya-wodAr are mentioned as being situated in the south, and I take this to have been the south- REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR eastern corner boundary of the estate, and I believe it to have been a ghAton a tributary of the Chhota Gandak River, near a place called Ahrowlee, or Ahiraoli, or somewhere be¬ tween two places called Muttyureea, or Matyuriya, and Dho- dhilla, about 12 miles to the east of Neta. " In the first statement of the boundaries there is a place called KarAgadi- khola, mentioned as being to the west, and I take this KarA- gadi to be probably the same as the Burgudie or Kurgudie (i.e., Kargadi ?) of the maps, a little over i-| miles to the east-south-east from Kamarya or KameryA, which was the north-western boundary of the estate, and nearly 11 miles to the east horn Chaotarwa. these boundaries would give an estate of about from 9^- to 12 and 14 miles in extent from north to south, by about from .12 to miles in extent from cast to west, or an area having an ideal mean of 12-g- miles each side. The second copper-plate states the gift of the office of KAzi to a person named Ran Mardat Sen and his heirs by a Raja MahAdatt Sen of PAlpA, in NipAl, north of Butwal, in Samvat 1845 (A.D. 1788), on the thirteenth day of the dark halt of the month of AshAd, and seventh day of the week. After the usual Sanskrit preface, like the other, the lan¬ guage of the inscription suddenly changes to the plain verna¬ cular Hindi dialect of the locality, which reads as follows:— Age, Ivaji Ran Marddat Senu ke mades prabat jAhA le PAlpA kai rAj hai, tAhA le ke kajyai bhArA britA kai ke dihal pust dar pust le, jab tAi hamAr santat rahe wo kAji kai santat rahe, tab lai kajyAi bhArA kare mAmulx khApan kajyAi kai khap, sa.rv Ahlc ine dasai mades prabat se lihal kar khusi khAtrijmA se kajyAi kai kAm kail kare; iti sri tAmr patt. Samvat 1845 sAl, AshAd krishn 13, roj 7. Mu kAm PAlpA subhm MArphat Sri Krishna Pandit. Before finally quitting my notice of objects or places of archaeological interest in the Gorakhpur District, I would like to mention a few other old sites, or places where there are mounds here and there. Of these, the most worthy of notice is Domangarh, which SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR is a large and high mound, consisting of the ruins of an ancient fort, situated about miles to the north-west of Gorakhpur, close to the north-east of the junction of the Rohin River with the Rapti; a bend of the Rohin River pro¬ tecting the position on the north-west, west, and south-west; the Rapti flows beyond to the south; and the north-east! east, and south-east of the position is protected by the Kakrahwa NAla, the southern continuation of which is called the JawainiyAn Mia. Thus it happens that during the rainy season, when all the water-channels are full, Domangarh is entirely surrounded by water. It will be seen from this des¬ cription that the position of Domangarh must have been a very strong and well-protected one in old times, and might prove a very strong position even now, if utilised and reforti¬ fied, or entrenched, by a military force. The place is well known to all residents of Gorakhpur, as there is a modern house on the top of the great mound, to which the Euro¬ pean residents of Gorakhpur occasionally retire for change of air. Domangarh is said to have been founded by, and to have derived its name from, a ruling tribe or family called Dom- Katar, who are considered to have been Kshatriyasor RAjpfits. This name, Dom-Katar, would at first sight appear to have some such signification as Dom-Killer, or something of that sort. But the name of the ancient fort Dothan-garh simply means the Dom J s fort., and the common people say that it was founded by Dorns. Others say that the Dom-Kattar were the RAjas of the Dorns, and I suspect that this was the real truth. 1 think ws have here another of several instances of the chiefs, or ruling families, of inferior races, taking the tank of RAjputs. Thus we have Doras and Dom-Katars, Bharsand RAj-Bhars, and lastly, Gujars and Bada-Gujars. The last named are commonly called Bar-Gujars, but in one of their own inscriptions which 1 discovered at MAchAri in RAjputAna, their name is plainly written Bada-Gujar, which simply means great Gujars. Yet the Bada-Gujars or Bargujars are consi¬ dered to be RAjputs, while the Gujars are not. If such facts as these do not; point to some former admission of powerful F 66 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, ruling families of inferior races to the rank of Kshatriyas, then I do not know what does. I t is now a long time ago since the Dom of Dom-Katar R&jas were ousted from Doman-Garh by certain RAjputs, who were the ancestors of the so-called Sat&ssi R&jas of Rudr- pur, of the RAjas of Bansi, and the R&jas of Unaola. It is ( said to have happened thus. The last Dom-Katar Raja of Doman-garh is said to have had a minister or Dew&n, called Suvari Tewari, who joined in a conspiracy against the Raja along with three Rajput officers, of whom one was named jay- singh and another called Bijaysingh, but the name of the third is not known. They murdered the Dom-Katar RAja, and then divided the land or raj between them. Jaysingh then became RAja of Unaola, Bijaysingh became RAja of B&nsi, and the third, whose name is forgotten, became the first SatAssi Raja A son of the Raja of Anaola or Unaola, named Horil Singh, became the adopted heir of RAja Bisrarn Singh of what is now called Gorakhpur (probably RAmgarh to the east of it), and fought against and defeated the RAj-Bhat RAjasof Bhaw- ApAr, on the west bank of the RApti, below Gorakhpur. The sixth in descent from Horil Singh was Raja Rudar Singh or Rudra Sinha, who founded Rudrapur or Rudra-pura. This last fact will serve to show how almost modern Rudrapur is as compared to Doman-garh, and how very ancient Doman- garh must be. The bricks (that is, any which have been found entire) which compose the interior or oldest portion of the ruins of Doman-garh, are very large and thick, and of a square shape. The ancient Dom or Dom-Katar chiefs or RAjas of Dom- an Garh would appear, at one time, to have held sway over the greater portion of what is now called the Gorakhpur Dis¬ trict, especially along the east bank of the Rapti River and its tributaries, as well as along the west bank of the Gandak River. I think there cannot be any doubt that they were the Kings of the Doms, and that the Dorns were the aborigines of the Gorakhpur District. That district is full of names of places, derived from the Doms, such, for instance, as Doman-garh, SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 67 Domri (a very common name), Domar DAr, Dom-kaicha, Domra, Doma HAta, Domariya ( a very common name ), Do¬ main, DomAth, &c., &c. Moreover, it is only in the Gorakh¬ pur District that we find the genuine jangal Doms in their true and original wild, independent, and wandering state, and in which state they are most expert and inveterate thieves, and, always carrying a concealed knife, are ready to murder at a moment’s notice, without the least scruple ! It is true that a tame and domesticated sort, of people called Doms are found settled down in other neighbouring districts, as in Motih&ri, S&ran, Azimgarh, and even in Benares, as well as those set¬ tled in the town of Gorakhpur, but they were utterly different from the wild, wandering jangal Doms of the Gorakhpur District. For the wild jangal Doms of the Gorakhpur Dis¬ trict are a wandering people, like, but much wilder and more truculent than, Gypsies; living in the jangal, with scanty im¬ provised temporary shelter, or sometimes no shelter at all ; al¬ ways moving about, and hardly ever to be found two days in the same place ; appearing suddenly sometimes here and some¬ times there, with the flitting uncertainty of sprites or demons ; always intent on robbery, and ready to murder; always carry¬ ing a concealed knife ; having a thieves’ language of their own; generally tall, lithe, supple men, and powerfully made ; hav¬ ing a cunning look, and a sinister but confident and daring- expression of countenance; and their women fond of finery, bright colours, and jewellery. Now, it is mentioned by the Chinese traveller Hiuwen Thsang that in his journey from the Ashes Stfipa, or Char¬ coal Stfipa, at the city of the Moriyas in the Nyagrodha forest, to Kusinagara, he travelled in a north-east direction for a long time through a vast forest, full of wild bulls and wild elephants, and infested with brigands !*' The site of the city of the Moriyas in the Nyagrodha Forest has been identi¬ fied by me with the ruins of Rajdhani, between the Gorra and Pharend Rivers, 14 miles to the south-east from Gorakhpur. There is still the remains of a great forest Ancient Geography of India, page 430 . VOL, XXII. 68 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, there. Nilgai and Jeopards are still met with in that jangal. Fifty years ago elephants roamed there; and the country is still infested with thieving Doms ! I therefore believe that the brigands mentioned by Hiuwen Thsang were the ancient and aboriginal Doms of the Gorakhpur District. I believe that Mr. Crooke, of the Civil Service, when Joint Magistrate of Gorakhpur, proposed to identify the Doms with the Romany Rai, or Gypsies ; and I believe he also noticed their secret language, their cunning, their thieving propensities, and their restless and wandering habits, as well as the evidences of the antiquity of their existence as a peculiar people indigenous in the Gorakhpur District. I do not know, however, whether Mr. Crooke ever imagined any possible connection to exist between the two names Dom and Romany! If Romany were a term of eastern origin (which is doubtful), then, as the Indian name Dom is spelt with a cerebral D, it might easily become changed into Rom, westwards, in Europe. But it is still an open question whether the term Romany was derived from Roumania, or not. Besides Domangarh, there are several other mounds of ruins which may be noted here ; namely : — i. Asuran ka PokharA. This is an ancient pond or tank, situated at the village of Jattai, about a mile to the north- north-east of the town of Gorakhpur. The reason why the tank is called Asuran ka PokharA is said to be because an ancient R&ja of the place named Sri PAla had a daughter called Kaolpati, who was demanded in marriage by several Rdjas, who had assembled for the purpose ; and so RAja Sri PAla promised to give his daughter Kaolapati to any one of the suitors who could dig a tank, of certain given dimen¬ sions, in a single night. One of the suitors, a Raja from the south, or Dekhan, who had a great host of followers with him, undertook to dig the tank, as required, in a single night. Pie did so, and then claimed the princess Kaolapati in marriage. But as it was believed that he performed this feat by the assistance of genii, or demons, called Asurs, consequently the tank which he dug was called Pushkar AsurAn&m, or 6 g Asuran ka PokharA, or the Asurs’ Tank. This is one version of the story; but there is another version which runs as fol¬ lows : It. is said that the person who dug the tank, or caused it to be dug, was an Asur RAja, or king of the Asuras ; and that by means of his followers, who were all Asuras, he was causing the tank to be dug, in order to obtain Kaolapati in marriage; but her father, the Raja Sri Pala, not wishing’ his daughter to marry an Asur, bethought himself of some means whereby he might put a stop to the digging of the tank ; so when the Asuras had dug three sides of the tank, RAja Sri PAla caused a light to be exhibited through and from behind a circular sieve, through the trees, at some distance, in order to simulate the rising of the sun. Then the stupid Asuras, thinking that the sun was really rising, and that in consequence they had not been able to complete the tank during the night, and before sunrise, according to agreement, left off their work and ran away, in order to avoid "exposure to shame and derision, when only three sides of the tank had been excavated; and this, the legend says, is the reason why the Asuran ka PokharA has only three sides to this day. Alas ! what a story to invent, to account for a mere three- sided dam evidently constructed to stop and hold the surplus pluvial waters coming down from the Tarai land on the north and north-east. For on that side not only was no embank¬ ment required, but it would have prevented the intended ingress of the pluvial surface water, which this three-sided dam was purposed to catch 1 Still, nevertheless, that portion of the story which refers to RAja Sri PAla, and the betrothal of his daughter Kaolapati, may very likely be founded on actual fact. But who was Sri PAta ; or to what dynasty did he belong; and what was the date of his reign? Could he possibly have been an ancestor of the PAla kings of Magadha, or BihAr ? If so, he must have lived before A.D. 815, the date given for the accession of GopAla Deva, the first in the list of the known kings of Magadha. According to one authority, Yasovigraha, the founder of the Rahtor family, who became kings of Kanaoj, was also 70 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, called Sri P&la, though otherwise I should rather have been inclined to suppose that Sri P&la may have been the name of an ancestor of Yasovigraha. But if Yasovigraha was called Sri P&la, I may note that he must have lived about A.D. 1017, which date 1 obtain by counting back at the rate of twenty-five years for a generation, from the date of the Gagahi copper-plate, which is Samvat 1199, or A.D. 1142, and in the time of Rijya Pftla, the son of Govinda Chandra. But General Cunningham places the date of the accession of Chandra Deva, the Rahtor conqueror of Kanaoj, in A.D. 1050. Chandra Deva was preceded by Mahichandra, and the latter was preceded by Yasovigraha, who is supposed by some to have also been called Sri P&la. If we now count back twenty-five years fora generation, from Chandra Deva to Yasovigraha, we get A.D. 1000 as about the date of the acces¬ sion of Yasovigraha. But even this date of A.D. 1000 would seem to be far too late for the Sri P&Ia of the Gorakhpur traditions, which have the appearance of being of very ancient date, 2. Ram-garh, sf miles to the east of Gorakhpur, on the east bank of Ram-garh Til, and on the south side of the road to Kasya. 3. Bheriyi-garh, 2J miles to the north-east of Gorakhpur, and on the south side of the road to Pipriicft. 4. * Baitil-garh, about 4! to 4I miles to the north-east from Gorakhpur, and to the north of the road to Pipr&ich, and dose to the west bank of the Gordhoiya Nila. 5. Maola-Kol and Pattra, respectively 8 and 9 miles to the north-east from Gorakhpur and on the road to Pipr&ich. 6. A mound on the west bank of the Jakahi Til, about 7|- miles to the north-west from Gorakhpur, 1 mile to the east of the fakahi mound, there is a place called Sakhui, which will be noticed afterwards. 7. Bhiti, 9I miles to the north-north-west from Gorakhpur. 8. Rija Biri, on the east bank of the Rapti, 11 miles to the north-north-west from Gorakhpur. 9. Kanapir-Gangipir, 11-| miles to the north-north-west*, half-north from Gorakhpur. 10. Kikhu-kMri, 16 miles to the north-north-west from Goi*akhpur. 11. Sarahri Dih, on a lake on the east bank of the Rohm Nadi, ii miles due north from Gorakhpur. 12. A mound of ruins near Tekrya, at the northern end of the Chiluwa Til, only 2 miles to the east-north-east from Sarahri Dih, and 12 miles to the north-north-east-half-north from Gorakhpur. Strange to say here we have two mounds of ruins situated on lakes, close to the west of the Rohin Nadi, with a place called Kanapir, 4 miles to the west of one mound, and 6 miles to the west of the other; and a place called Kikhu-khftri, to 8 miles to the north-west of them ; and a place called Sakhui, from 6 to 7! miles to the south-west of them ; dr with the very surroundings which belong to the site of Kapila- vastu, at Bhuila, which is situated on a lake, on the west bank of the Riwai River, and with Kanakpur, 6| miles to the west, of it, and Kakupur or Nagara Dih, 74 miles to the north-west of it, and a place called Sarkihiya, 4! miles to the south of it. Such a series of exact coincidences is more than strange. 13. Narkataha Dih, on the Rohin Nadi, 14^ miles to the north of Gorakhpur. 14. Matihaniya, about 20 miles to the west-north-west from Gorakhpur. 15. Beraicha and Matkopa, 30 miles to the north-east from Gorakhpur. 16. Bhawapir, on the west side of the Nandaor Til, west of the Rapti River, and 7 miles to the south of Gorakhpur. 17. Bakra Dih or Bakhira Dih, situated close to the south-east of the great lake commonly called Bakra Til, but the proper name of which appears to be Bakhira Til, Bakhira Dih is situated between the great lake and the Ripti River. Bakhira Til itself is said to have been the site of an ancient city, which was destroyed and overwhelmed on account of its wickedness; and there is a story about it, pre¬ served in local songs, connected with the forcible appropria¬ tion by the Rija of the place of the young bride of a Brah¬ man, which is opined to be not decent enough to relate, The 7 ? REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, proper ancient name of the lake is said to have been Lakshmi- Sarovar, or Lakshmisar. It has also been called the BadArii Til. 18. Magahar, 13I miles to the west from Gorakhpur. It is a very ancient site ; but the remains at present visible there do not appear to be of very ancient date. It is, however, reputed to have been the seat: of Buddhist hierarchs, for sometime after Kapilavastu was destroyed., Magahar was the birth-place of famous reformer ICabir DAs. There are two shrines there dedicated to Kabir DAs, one for Hindus and the other for MusalmAns, to the east of Magahar, close to the right bank of the Ami River. 19. Baraon, near Samogar, to the east of the RApti, nearly 32 miles to the south-south-east from Gorakhpur. 20. luxiriya (the byreeah of the maps), on the west bank of the RApti, opposite to Samogar. In a previous report I have already described other much more important ruined sites in the Gorakhpur District, namely, Tameswar, identified with Maneya; and the KudawA NAla, identified with the Anoma River; Sirsara, MahathArt, and Paithana; Updhaoliya and RajdhAni SAhankot; Chowra. and Bhopa; Mithabel; the Rudrapur SAhankot; the site of Kusinagara, and Temple and Stupa of the NirvAna, near Ivasya; and I'arilnagar-Ghetiyaon, the site of PAwa, with other mounds in its neighbourhood. The Gorakhpur District, contains perhaps more ancient sites than any other district in India. I was unfortunately again attacked with a return of the larai fever in the Gorakhpur District, and was for some time unable to move any further. But as soon as I could gather sufficient strength, 1 started again on a fresh journey of explo¬ ration with the intention of going southwards into the SAran District, though I was ill the whole way and found myself in a most miserable and desperate condition in consequence. I noticed an ancient site or mound of ruins near Motipur, about 28 miles to the south-east from Kasya, but I was so debilitated by fever that I had not the strength to walk about in ordei to examine the ground personally at this place. SARAN, AND GHAZIRUR. 73 17■ Dighwa Dubaoli (Sdran District ).—At Dighwa Du¬ baoli, about 33 miles to the north of Chapra, I found an ancient site, and two extraordinary pyramidal-shaped mounds. These two extraordinary mounds are situated close to the south-east of the village of Dighwa Dubaoli, and east and west of each other. The western mound is situated almost adjoining the south-south-eastern end of the village, and the eastern mound is situated at the distance of 640 feet to the east-south-east of the other, and close to the road. Each of these mounds is of a pyramidal shape, with four corners at the base projecting con¬ siderably outwards, so that a ground plan of one of these mounds would resemble a four-pointed star surmounted centri- cally by a cone. Each side of the square of the plane area of the base of the eastern mound gave about 145 feet of horizon¬ tal measurement from one projecting point to another. The circumference of the surmounting cone at. base measured 240 feet, which is of course at some height above the surrounding flat ground, as there is a slope up from each of the four corners of the base of the mound, measuring 25 feet up to the slant, to meet the base of the cone. The sloping sides of the cone itself alone measured 45 feet in height (slant measurement). The top of the cone ends in a small flat area. I estimated the total perpendicular height of the mound to be about 20 feet. Of the other western mound, the eastern side of the square of the area which it covered measured 160 feet, and the southern side 127 feet. The total slanting height of the mound on the eastern side was 70 feet, and on the southern side 66 feet. These measurements will give a less perpendi¬ cular height to this mound than the other. The circum¬ ference of the base of the cone at some height above the ground measured 209 feet. These mounds appeared to be formed of clay, but mixed with small fragments of brick and pottery. At the distance of 950 feet to the south of the eastern mound, there is a roundish-shaped mound of moderate height, with a horizontal diameter of about 200 feet from north to south, and about 140 feet from east to west. There is an old well here. 74 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, Across the road to the north of the village there is a portion of a mound which appears as if cut off by the road from the large flat mound on which the village Dighwa Dub- aoli itself stands. These mounds are said to have been the work of Cheru- Chal, that is, of the Cherus, an aboriginal race who seem to have once been powerful in this part of the country, but who now inhabit the hills to the south of the Ganges. I heard of another mound called Damdama, on an old riverbed, close to the south-west of a village named Budhshi, about 4 miles to the east of Dhangsi, which latter place is nearly 20 miles to the east-south-east-half-east from Hathwa, and 10^ miles to the west-north-west from Dighwa Dubaofi. 18. Cher an (Sdran District ).—'From Dighwa Dubaoli 1 went on, in very bad health, to Chapra, and there became very ill, so that I was very little able to move about. I however managed to visit Cher&n (the Cherand of the maps), a very ancient place on the bank of the Ganges, with mounds of ruins of an ancient city, nearly 7 miles to the south-east of Chapra. On the top of the principal mound there is an oblong square¬ shaped masjid, or mosque, with an inscription in the Ruffe style of character over the doorway. This mosque must have been entirely built out of the ruins of some large ancient Hindu tem¬ ple, for eight square Hindu pillars, or rather pilasters, line the inside of the walls. The stone of which these pillars are made appeared to me to be some kind of Greenstone. The inscrip¬ tion over the doorway is in three double lines, and, as far as 1 can make out, appears to bear the name of A 1 & ul dunya w’al din abua an zafar Hftsdn Sh&h ul Suit An ibn Saiyad Ashraf, who was king of Bengal about A.D. 1498 to 1520. It must have been this MusalmAn prince who destroyed an ancient Hindu temple at Cheran, and built the mosque out of its materials. CherAn is situated just at the junction of an old rivet channel (an old bed of the Ghaghra River) with the Ganges. A portion of the elevated ancient ruined site has been cut away by the river channel, showing a high cliff of earth whiclj is full of large ancient bricks, and is pierced by numerous shafts of ancient wells of narrow diameter lined with cylinders of red earthenware. Cher&n is said to have been founded by, and to have derived its name from, the Cherus, or, as the common people say, Cheru-Ch&x. To the west of the Ghaghra River and of Chandpurin the Baliya District, there is a place called Chai-chera, and an¬ other called Cherethi, the names of which may perhaps bear reference to the former occupation of that part of the country also by the Cherus Chai or Cliay, would seem to have been the name of an ancient chief, or of a ruling family, among the Cherus, and I believe that some such name is preserved in the traditions of the Cherus on the hills to the south of the Ganges. Indeed some of the natives derive the name of Cher&n from a Cheru chief called Chai or Chae, whence the name of the place would be Chai-rana. I have already stated that the Mas]id of Husen Shah at Cheran was built out of the materials of an ancient Hindu temple which was destroyed by the MusahnAns. The anti¬ quity of the temple (and probably also of some other build¬ ings formerly connected with it or surrounding it) may be judged off by the size of the bricks. The largest and most ancient of the bricks measured i yf inches in length, by 10 inches in breadth, and 3! inches in thickness 'The next in size were I4f inches, by 10^ inches, by 3! inches. The small¬ est in size were I2f inches, by inches, by 3^ inches, with a few rather smaller, namely, 12 4 by 8 inches. On the great mound I also observed some fragments of brick having a convex curve on one side, as if they had belonged to a stupa. iq. Na-lo-yen, or Nardyana (Narainpur ). — In General Cunningham's Ancient Geography of India, at pages 438, 439, and 440, he quotes from the travels of the Chinese pilgrim Hiuwen Thsang, to the effect that, at the distance of 200 li, or 33 miles, to the east of the capital of the kingdom of Chen-chu, or the Lord-of-battles, supposed to be near GhAzipur, the Chinese traveller arrived at a monastery called Aviddhakarna, „which General Cunningham proposed to place near Baliya, on the north of the Ganges. But it would seem that the other 76 REPORT OF TOURS. IN' GORAKHPUR, Chinese traveller, Fa-Hian, refers to the same place under the name of the Vast Solitude, for which General Cunningham pro- poses the Sanskrit equivalent of Vrihadaranya. But I believe that I have discovered the very spot, under the name of Dhar- mardnya, close to Baliya! This site will afterwards be des¬ cribed by me in its proper order; but I must now let it pass, as my present objects in view bear more reference to the Saran or Chapra District, and its neighbourhood; but on the way, we have still to find the site of a temple on the north side of the Ganges, which Hiuwen Thsang calls Na-lo-yen, or Ndriyana. From the monastery above mentioned, Hiuwen Thsang travelled in a south-easterly direction for ioo li, or 16 miles, to the bank of the Ganges, which river he crossed, and then turning to the south for some unrecorded distance, he reached the town of Mo-ho-so-lo, or Mahdsdra, which has been identi¬ fied by ,M. Vivien de Saint-Martin with the village of Masdr (the Musad of the maps), 6 miles to the west of Ard (the Arrah of the maps). The Chinese traveller then suddenly mentions his arrival at the temple of Na-lo-yen, or Ndrayana, to the north of the Ganges, without stating either its distance • or bearing from the last place. It seems probable, therefore, that the Chinese traveller went due north to the Ganges, and crossed straight over. Now there are three old roads"leading due northwards from near Masdr to the Ganges, the more usually travelled one reaching the Ganges near a village marked in the map under the unpronounceable name of Pudoomeueean (?), which may perhaps be intended for Padumaiyan. Another road strikes the Ganges a mile to the west of the above, at a village called Hetimpur. Either of these roads leads to the usual ferry which the country people commonly make use of when they want to cross over to the villages opposite on the north side of the Ganges, the names of which are Narainpurand Gangapur. d he small village of Narainpur is not usually mark¬ ed in the maps; but it is said that there were originally two small villages of that name, one of which is still situated about a mile to the north-east from Gangapur, and about the same distance off from the river. The other village of the same, name is said to have been situated somewhere on the old SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 77 bank of the river to the south of the former, but was washed away by an encroachment of the river a few years ago. There is also said to have been the ruins of an ancient temple there. This site is only 4 miles to the west of one of the channels by which the Ghaghra River joins the Ganges. It is this site at Narainpur that I would propose to identify with the N&r&yana or Na-lo-yen of Hiuwen Thsang. I visited the spot myself in a boat. There is a mound of ruins at the village of Lachhmipur, which is an old site, about 3! miles to the north-east of Gangi- pur and Narainpur. 20. The Asylum Stupa, or Stiipa of the conversion of the Man-eating Demons .— Let me again quote from the same author —“ At 30 li, or 5 miles, to the east of the temple (of N&rAyana), there was a famous stupa built by Asoka on the spot where Buddha had overcome and converted certain evil de¬ mons, who were said to live upon human flesh. The demons embraced Buddhism, or, as it was expressed by the ancient Buddhists, sought the refuge or asylum of the Three Precious Ones, that is, of the Buddhist Triad Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.” General Cunningham thinks that as Sarana is the Sanskrit term for asylum or refuge, the stftpa would probably be called the Sarana Sthpa, and would therefore probably be found in the District of Saran. Now 5 miles to the east of Narainpur would bring us on to a large island* in the middle of the mouth of the Ghaghra River, where it joins the Ganges. The stupa may therefore possibly have long ago been washed away by the river. But at the distance of only 8 miles to the north-east from Narainpur, there is a mound or pile of brick ruins at Godena, close to Revilganj, on the east bank of the Ghaghra, near its mouth, and 3§ miles to the west of Chapra. Again' 3 miles to the north of Revilganj, near a village called Nawada, there are two mounds of ruins called Chatra. But if the Asylum stupa was anywhere in this quarter, it would * This large island is about 4 miles square; and there are three villages on it marked as Bati lola* Baiju Tola, and Loha Tola. The road from Ara to Re¬ vilganj, after crossing the Ganges by a ferry near a village called Sinha, crosses the centre of this island. The island is covered with a growth of small Jhau trees. 78 REPORT OF FOURS IN GORAKHPUR, most likely be at Godena, because there is a popular tradi¬ tion actually current there to the effect that the name of Godena is derived from and is a corruption of that of Gautama, and that Gautama himself resided and taught here for some time. It is now, at the present day, generally supposed that this tradition refers to the Gautama who was the author of Ny&ya philosophy ; but this may perhaps be only a modern adaptation of the 'tradition, and it may possibly originally have referred to Gautama Buddha. 21. The Drona Stupa, or Kumbhdn Stupa .—General Cunningham further quotes from Hiuwen Thsang to the effect that, on leaving the Asylum StCtpa, the Chinese traveller proceeded ioo li, or nearly 17 miles, to the south-east, to another sthpa which was said to have been built by a Brah¬ man over the vessel, or kumbhan, with which he measured the relics of Buddha into eight equal portions, each of which was equivalent to one drona in measure. The stupa was however called the Kumbh&n or Kumbha StCtpa in. Cey¬ lonese chronicles. Hence General Cunningham suggested that as degh* is the common Hindi name of a large metal vessel of exactly the same shape as the kumbha, the site of the stftpa might possibly be found at or near a place marked as Deegwara, in the maps, or rather Digw&ra as the name is really pronounced, a little over 17 miles to the east from Chapra, or at least that it was a convenient name to remem¬ ber. But Digw&ra is too far off, if the Asylum Stupa was anywhere in the neighbourhood of Revilganj, where I have suggested it might have been. I had Digw&ra examined, but although the village is situated on a mound-like rising ground, and there is also a temple at the village, no promising mound of ruins was to be found. Moreover, the real name of the village is Digw&ra, which does not seem to show any connec¬ tion with degh. I would however beg to propose as possible alternative sites, either the neighbourhood of a village called Kijndar- budha, i6£ miles to the east from Revilganj, and 12 miles to * is not the word degh purely Persian C, Carlleyle, SAKAN, AND GHAZ1PUR. 79 the east of Chapra; or else SarCta Dih, io| miles to the east from Revilganj, and 6 miles to the east of Chapra, But why should not CherAn itself, the most ancient place in the whole of the SAran District, have been the site of the Kumbh&n Stupa? It is 11 miles to the east-south-east from Godena or Revilganj on the Ghaghra; but if, as I have supposed, the Asylum Stupa was really situated on the large flat island in the middle of the mouth of the Ghaghra River, 5 miles to the east of Narainpur, where it must long ago have been washed away by the river, then the distance from that point, to Cheran would be nearly 13 miles direct as the arrow flies; but. the actual distance probably travelled by road and by frequented ferries must have been more round¬ about, and could not have been less than 15 miles at least, which I think would sufficiently meet all requirements. I think therefore that the site of the KumbhAn stupa should really be looked for among the mounds of ancient ruins at Cheran. For instance, as I before stated, the mosque of Husen Shah bin Saiyad Ashraf, at CherAn, which was built out of the materials of an ancient Hindu temple, is situated on the summit of a high mound of ruins, which might- just possibly contain the ruins of a stupa buried in its in¬ terior. It is worthy of remark, with regard to the name of the place called Cheran or ChirAn, that chiran and chirAyu mean ancient; while the root chir (with the vowel 1 long) implies the act of cutting asunder, splitting, rending, dividing, or division, as in the Hindi chirna, chirAna, and chirAo, and might just scarcely possibly refer to the division of the remains of Buddha, into eight parts, each equal to a drona. as measured by a kumbha of that capacity which vessel was afterwards enshrined in a sthpa, which was therefore called the KumbhAn StApa. But the place where this was done may have been called the dividing, or the place of division; and the memory of some such signification may have been preserved in such a name as ChirAn ; though certainly bhAg, or even AdhyAy, would be more likely terms to be applied to mere division by measure, into equal parts, shares, or lots. There is also the So REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, Hindi verb chhurAna, to separate, to set free, to get rid of, to disintegrate. After leaving- the Drona or KumbhAn StApa, Hiuwen Thsang continued his journey to the north-east, and crossed a river, which he called the Ganges, on his road to VaisAli, but which must have been the Gandak. It must have been the Gandak which he crossed, because he was obliged to cross the Gandak on his way to VaisAli; and he could hard¬ ly have crossed such a large river without mentioning it. Moreover, probably in his time any large river would have been called Ganga. General Cunningham’s work, the Ancient Geography of India, from which I have made several quotations in this report relating to the NArAyana of Hiuwen Thsang, the Asylum StApa, and the Drona or Kumbhan Stupa, was pub¬ lished in 1871 ; but in 1873 General Cunningham published his third volume of the reports of the Archaeological Survey. At pages 72 .and 73 and 77 of that report, in a description of ArA, he alters his opinion with regard to the position of the Asylum Stupa and Drona or Kumbhan StApa. He sup¬ poses that in the time of Hiuwen Thsang the Ganges flowed close past Masar and ArA, and that Hiuwen Thsang only saw the temple of NArAyana, on the opposite side of the river, from the old bank of the river at. MasAr, but did not go across to visit it. He therefore thinks that the Asylum StApa was at Bakri, close to the west of ArA, and nearly 5 miles to the east of MasAr; and identifies the Brahmanical legend about the man-eating Bak-Asur, with the Buddhist legend about the man-eating demons converted by Buddha. Finally, he proposes either CherAn, 15 miles to the north-east from ArA, or else Bhita (where the ruins of a stupa have been found), 12 miles to the east of ArA, as the probable site of the Drona or Kumbhan StApa. In the case of Bhita being identified as the site of the Drona Stupa, it of course follows that the river first crossed by Hiuwen Thsang, to the north-east, on his way to VaisAli, must have been the Ganges. But then, as I said before, what becomes of the Gandak River, which Hiuwen Thsang mmmmmmmmmmmsmm ;i^{h^ '^.N'j'' z- 1 ’ ‘ i ' !^ , ' , v "p ' ; ■ 1,1 '■ "' : ' ‘ ’ SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 8i must also have crossed on his way to Vais&li ? Surely he could scarcely have omitted to mention the crossing of such a large and important river as the Gandak, or Naraini as it is now called! Then, again, with regard to the supposition that the Ganges flowed close past Mas&r and Ara in the time of Hiuwen Thsang, and that Hiuwen Thsang did not visit the temple of N&r&yana, on the north bank of the river, himself, at. all, but only saw it from the old south bank of the river at Masar. If that really was the case, it will surely become evident to any one, on looking at the map, that in order that the temple of N&r&yana, on the opposite side of the river, could have been clearly visible to Hiuwen Thsang from Mas&r, it must have been situated only a very short distance to the north of it, say not more than 2 miles at most, which \vould require that the temple must have been situated on the present south side of the Ganges, and close to the north side of the present Grand Trunk Road, the line of which must then have been at the bottom of the Ganges ! (Since raised up, probably, for the special benefit of our enginers!) But if we suppose that Hiuwen Thsang really did visit the temple of Narayana himself, then it may have been situated at any distance to the north of Mas&r, wherever the north bank of the Ganges really was in the time of Hiuwen Thsang; and consequently it may have been situated just exactly where, as I have previously stated, an old village called Narainpur, with its temple, has been washed away into the bed of the Ganges, near Gang&pur. Gang&pur is situated on the present north bank of the Ganges; and there is a small modem village also called Narainpur to the north-east of it; but. the site of an old village, also called Narainpur, is now swallowed up in the bed of the Ganges. When I last saw that part of the Ganges, it had cut away the land marked on the maps to the south-east of Gang&pur, and it ran quite close past the village itself. The river had made a sort of blind bay, called a kol by the natives, just at and above Gang&pur. From thence a new channel turned round southwards and south-eastwards, and then turned sharply vox., xxn. 82 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, off south-westwards ; and I heard that it had broken through to the south of Birsingha, which is marked in the old maps as being on the south side of the Ganges ! Thus the Ganges has recently been approaching one of its ancient, southern channels, which ran from Sohra to Bahoranpur, considerably to the south of the channel marked in the maps. 22 . The Dharmdranya {and Dharmaoli ), at Baliya t iden~ tijied as the site of the Aviddhakarna Monastery of Hiwwe-n Thsang, and the Vast Solitude {or Wilderness') of Fa-hian .—I have already previously mentioned that somewhere on the north side of the Ganges, and at the distance of about 33 miles to the east of the capital of the Kingdom of Chen-chu, or the Lord-of-battles, supposed by General Cunningham to be probably either Gh&zipur, or else some spot in its immediate neighbourhood, the Chinese travel¬ ler Hiuwen Thsang arrived at a Buddhist monastery, called the 'Aviddhakarna, which means the pierced ears, or perhaps slit ears, the Hindi kan-phat&, a term still applied to men of certain religious orders who have long slits in their ears, by which they are drawn down to a great length ; and an actual instance of this'may still be seen in the case of the Sant, or Mahant, and his chelas, or disciples, at the Mandap of Gorakhn4th, in Gorakhpur, where, from their long slit ears, they are called Kan-phatA Gossains by the common people. And it is scarely necessary to add that long slit ears were specially characteristic of Buddhist ascetics and devotees ; whereas mere pierced ears are, and probably always have been, common to all Hindus of all denominations. General Cunningham (Ancient Geography of India, page 439) suggested that as the name of the Monastery Aviddha¬ karna would easily in course of time become corrupted to to Bidkarn, and then afterwards perhaps even to Bikan, that the name might perhaps be still preserved in that of a village called Bikapura (the Beckuppoora of the maps), less than a mile to the east-south-east-half-east of Baliya, as marked in the now rather old survey, in the maps which I have. But when I visited the place myself in the rainy season of 1879, the old village of Bikapura had apparently been swept away SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 83 by the encroachments of the flooded River Ganges; and the ousted inhabitants seemed to be living in a sort of make-shift rude hamlet of huts, close adjoining to the small town of Baliya; and I suppose that the .wretched representative of the old village probably inherits its name of Bikapura. But the name of Bikapur might perhaps stand for Bhikhupur, and might thus be a vernacular corruption of Bhikshupur, meaning the town of the Bhikshus, which would refer to the Bud¬ dhist mendicant monks themselves! But the above is not the only place in the same locality, which has, in recent times, or indeed quite of late years, been washed away into the deep dark surging waters of the relent¬ less river, in the encroachments caused by excessive floods during the rains. For about a mile to the south-east of Baliya there was an ancient place called BhagrAsan (marked in the old maps as Bagraso), with a famous temple of Devi BhawAni; and a great fair or mela, called Dadri Chhatra, used to be held there annually on the pftrnamAsi of KArtic. This place was also famous as the site of a hermitage of the Muni or Rishi Bhrigu ; and the place is said to have been originally called Bhrigu-Asan or BhrigAsan after him, of which name BhagrAsan is therefore believed to be a corruption. I should, however, rather have taken the name to be BaghrAsan, and have supposed it to be a corruption of VyaghrAsan, and thus to have borne reference to Devi BhawAni. But however that may be, the whole of this ancient site is now engulfed in the bed of the river! But I found something better and more satisfactory than either Bikapura or BhagrAsan at Baliya! For I found the actual site of the monastery visited by Hiuwen Thsang ! I visited the place in a boat, in which I was making my way up the river from Chapra to GhAzipur, against an adverse wind and tide, while examining all the ancient sites on the banks of the river; but 1 could only visit those on the northern bank of the river, for the wretched flat-bottomed boat could not tack against stream, and against an adverse west wind which was blowing down the river, and it had therefore to be towed for the greater part of the way along the northern bank. VOL. XXII. G I 84 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, 1 saw several mounds of ruins at, or in the immediate neighbourhood of, Baliya, and I felt certain I had correctly identified the site I was in search of, more especially from two names still existing there, namely, Dharm&ranya and Dham- aoli, or Dharmaoli! But as I had engaged the boat by con¬ tract for a certain time, and much delay had already been caused by slow progress, I could not spare time to survey the place then. But this I had done afterwards, through the obliging kindness of Mr. Leupolt, C.S., who was then (1 be¬ lieve) Joint Magistrate of Baliya. The survey was made by a clever young Native student, named Charitra Lall, under the superintendence of Chittru Lall, Officiating Tahsild&r of Baliya. Now, I have already previously intimated that the same monastery which Hiuwen Thsang called the Aviddhakarna is believed to be mentioned also by the other Chinese traveller Fa-Hian under the name of the Vast Solitude, for which General Cunningham suggested the Sanskrit equivalent Vri- had&ranya. But. in a footnote to page 439 of his Ancient Geography of India, he remarks that in Beal's translation the vihcir, or monastery, is called simply the desert, which would in Sanskrit be simply Aranya ! The correct Sanskrit word for desert, waste, or wilderness, or for waste barren land, or for wild land bearing only stunted scrub or bush, such as are now more commonly and indiscriminately called jangal, is of course Aranya. And a monastery devoted to the study or practice of the chief doctrine or law of the Buddhist faith, namely, Dharma, and which was established in a desert place, or a wilderness, would therefore likely be called the Dharmi- rati^a Vih&ra, or Dharm-aranya, Arama; and this very name, Dharm-aranya, we find actually still preserved, up to the pre¬ sent time, in the name of a spot at Baliya. At the distance of about 450 feet to the north of the north-eastern corner of the town of Baliya, there is an ancient tank, which is called the Dharm&ranya Pokhra; and to the north and east of it there are (or were till quite lately) traces of the former existence of an ancient jangal, or scrubby forest, or waste ground with scrub, probably a rent* SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 85 nant of the ancient Aranya, as well as the palms, mango trees, and other trees, of the present time. In reply to an enquiry made of the then Officiating Tahsild&r of Baliya, Chittru Lall, cm this very point, he said There is an ancient pond on the north side and close to the town of Baliya, called DharmA- ranya PokharA, and it is said that there was formerly a long desert or forest about the pond. So here we have an actual proof of the former existence of a desert or forest on this spot! Secondly, there are mounds of ruins at a place called Beduwali, about a mile to the north of Baliya. Thirdly, near the village of Wazirapur, at the distance of about 4,000 feet to the east-south-east-half-east from the town of Baliya, there is a mound of ruins, with a small pond at its western side. This mound measured 165 feet in cir¬ cumference, 73 feet in diameter from north to south, 67 feet in diameter from east to west, and about 14! feet in height. Fourthly, about 850 feet to the south-south-east from the last mound, there is another mound of ruins, near a village vulgarly called Dhamaoli, which is a mere boorish modifica¬ tion of its proper name Dharmaoli, and probably a modern corruption of the Sanskrit Dharm-alaya.* This mound measured 283 feet in circumference, log feet in diameter from north to south, 43 feet in diameter from east to west, and a little less than 13 feet (or 12-A- feet) in height. Fifthly, at the distance of 2,400 feet to the east-north- east from the Dhamaoli mound, and near the village of Mu- hammadpur (or say about miles to the east-south-east- half-east from Baliya) there is a still larger and much higher mound of ruins, which is situated on the north side of a large oval-shaped pond of water. This mound measured 299 feet (or say about 300 feet) in circumference, 72 feet in diameter from north to south, 81 feet in diameter from east to west, and about 24^ feet in height. I would not wonder if it should eventually turn out that this mound contained the ruins of a stupa. * Similarly, in the Saran district also, there is a place called Dharmaoli, 9f miles to the north-east of Chapra. 86 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, Sixthly, at the distance of about 500 feet to the east of the last-named mound, there is a long narrow-shaped mound, running eastwards, along the north side of a road, for over 500 feet, to a temple, which is situated on the eastern end of the mound. From the foregoing description which I have given of the remains about Baliya, I think there cannot be any doubt that I have identified the site of the monastery mentioned by Hiuwen Thsang and Fa-ITian, and that its real original name must have been Dharm-^ranya, which agrees with Beal’s rendering. . Moreover, the country to the north and also to the east of Baliya must really have been, and was formerly in an¬ cient times, a wilderness ; and in those quarters, even up to quite recent times, there was a good deal of waste land and barren land, and also some scrubby jangal, but particularly about, or to the north and east of, the DharmS.ranya PokharA (as certified to by the Officiating Tahsildar of Baliya), and also about Sivar&mpur, to the east of Muhammadpur, as well also as about the Suraha Tal, a large marshy lake about 5 miles to the north of Baliya. Baliya is supposed to have derived its name by corrup¬ tion from that of the Rishi VMmiki, who is said to have had his hermitage there, or to have dwelt on the spot for some time. Its ancient name may therefore perhaps have been V&lmikiya. But there is also a spot on the bank of the Ganges at Bithhr (north of K&npur, or Cawnpore) called VAlmiki ki Kuti, where his hermitage is said to have been.*' The name of Baliya might however possibly retain some allusion to the pierced ears of the old Buddhist monks, as Mli means ear-ring, and baliya means a person wearing ear¬ rings. At the time of Hiuwen Thsang’s visit, I think that the Ganges very probably flowed much further south, close past * For this information, respecting the site of the hermitage of Val mi ki at Bithur, I was first indebted to my writer, Babu Budhram. He also informed me that Jajmafi, on the south bank of the Ganges, 5 miles to the south-east <^f Cawnpore, is supposed to be the site of the capital of Yay&ti, and to have derived its name from him. SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 87 Bhojpur, and thence on eastwards, where an old channel of that river is still plainly distinguishable ; and if, as has been said, Hiuwen Thsang crossed the Ganges 16 miles to the South-east (or say east-south-east) from the monastery, on his way to Mas&r, it must have been somewhere about Nainijor, or Dharmangathpur, which are now on the south side of the Ganges. Even now this is the usual ferrying or crossing place for people going to and from Haldi and Ma- thiya on the opposite side of the river, and from this ferry an old track, or ancient line of road, leads in the direction of Mas&r and Ar&. 23, Other ancient sites on the Ganges above Baliya , or between Baliya and Ghasipur. —I have previously mentioned a small village called Narainpur, on the north side of the Ganges, nj miles north from Mas&r, which Narainpur I have proposed to identify with the Na-lo-yen or N&r&yana of Hiuwen Thsang. But though not in any way connected with Hiuwen Thsang’s travels, there is another much larger place called Narainpur on the north side of the Ganges, about 2} miles to the west of Baghsar or Baxar, 17 miles to the south-west from Baliya, and 21 miles to the east of Gh&zipur. About 1 mile to the east of this Narainpur, and on the bank of the river, there is a place called Mathiya ; and half a mile to the south of Narainpur there is a village called Kotwa, close to another village called Sikandarpur. The whole of these places occupy an ancient site, and there are many tem¬ ples there, but I could not get a single inscription. On the south side of the river, on the banks of the Thora Nadi, and about 2 miles to the south-south-east from Na¬ rainpur, there is a mound of ruins called Chetiya. On the north bank of the Ganges, nearly opposite to the mouth of the Karamn&sa River, about 5 miles to the south-west from Narainpur, and about 1^ miles to the north-west of Chaosa, there are two groups of mounds of ruins called Chetiya and Ambi Kot or Ambirikh. The mound of Chetiya (which is close to the east side of the other) from its name might perhaps possibly contain Bud- 88 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, dhist remains. The mounds of Atnbi Kot or Arnbirikh con¬ sist of the remains of a very ancient fort, which is said to, have been founded by Ambika Rishi, or Ambarikha Rishi. Nevertheless, the place is also said to have belonged to the Cheru ka Rdj. I think it is most likely that Ambika Rishi had a hermitage there in which he dwelt, while the original inhabitants were Cherus. At any rate, it is certainly a very ancient site. A portion of this ancient site has been cut away by the river, leaving a high perpendicular cliff overhanging the river; and in this exposed section 1 could see numerous bricks and fragments of ancient pottery. Very ancient coins are said to be found on this spot. On the south side of the Ganges, near the east bank of the mouth of the Karamndsa River, and about miles dye south of Arnbirikh, I saw a mound. About two-thirds of a mile to the west of the mouth of the Karamndsa River there is an old village called Biri Close to this village I saw a conical or rather a pyramidal- shaped mound. Again, about a mile to the west of Bard, and about if miles to the west of the mouth of the Karamndsa River, there is a large mound of ruins, probably those of an ancient kot or fort. This is about miles to the north¬ east of a place named Guhmur (Gehmur ?) in the maps, near which there is also a railway station of that name which is spelt as Gahmar in the Railway time-tables. If I might hazard a conjecture that the correct spelling of the name of this place might perhaps be Gehmur, it might pos¬ sibly denote the dwelling of Mur, which was the name of a demon (the Demon of Death), fabled to have been destroyed by Krishna, who in consequence of this feat obtained the name of Murdri, or the foe of Mur. But there is also a kind of grass called ghamtir. 2 4 • The, Capital of the Kingdom of “ Chenchu/’ or the 1,01 d-of -Battles. As has already been stated, the monastery visited by Hiuwen Thsang was about 33 miles to the east of the capital of the kingdom of Chen-chu or the Lord-of- battles. SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 89 General Cunningham (Ancient Geography of India, pages 438 and 439) proposed to identify this place with Gh&zipur, and remarks that the original Hindu name of Gh&zipur is said to have been Garjpur, and that as Garjan means prima¬ rily any roaring noise, and secondarily battle, and as Garjana- pati is a title of the god of war, that therefore the original Sanskrit name of the place may have been Garjapatipura ; and this would, so far, give us a pretty exact rendering of the Chinese Chen-chu, translated as Lord-of-battles. Now, if we measure 33 miles, with the compasses, on the map, from the position of the Dharm-Aranya Pokhra at the north-east corner of the town of Baliya, in a direction nearly due westwards, it brings us to a point on the small MangM River, 7! miles to the north of Gh&zipur. Or if we measure in a south-westerly direction, in the actual direction of GhAzipur itself, the distance of 33 miles brings us to a village marked in the maps as KAlispur, on the B4su Nadi, miles to the east of Ghazipur. Hence the full distance from the Dharm&ranya at Baliya to GhAzipur direct, as the bird flies, turns out to be about 35$ miles, or about 2} miles greater than the travelled distance given by Hiuwen Thsang. But any given travelled route, or distance by road, between two places, can never be less than the direct distance as mea¬ sured in a straight line on a map ; or in other words, the direct distance, in a straight line, can never be more, but must be less, than the travelled route by road. Consequently Gh 4 zipur thus appears to be too far off, for the site we are in search of. Now therefore, if a travelled route by road, between any two places, was 33 miles, then the actual distance in a direct line, if measured on a map, would be much less, or probably not more than 30 miles at most. Let us therefore now try the distance, of 30 miles, with the compasses, on the map. Thirty miles from the Dharm- ctranya at Baliya, in a direction nearly due west, brings us to a place called Samanpur, on the MangM River, 8-J miles to the noi th-east of Ghazipur j while, again, 30 miles in a west- south-westerly direction brings us to a point between the 90 REPORT OF TOURS. IN GORAKHPUR, BAsft Nadi and the Ganges, near a place marked as Dungar- pur, or else to a point on the BAsu Nadi between ShahbAzkftli and Ferozpur, 5^ miles to the east-north-east from GhAzipur. So this last trial, again, leaves us at too great a distance short of GhAzipur, to allow of its being absolutely or satisfac¬ torily identified as the site we are in search of. Of course it is possible that Hiuwen Thsang himself has made a mis¬ take in his record of the distance, and that it may really have been greater than he states. But at present, so far, with the only data available to us, our analysis has left us with unsatisfactory results. But Hiuwen Thsang also gives us the distance of the capital of Chen-chu from VarAnasi or BanAras, and he says that it was situated 300 li, or 50 miles' to the east, of BanAras. If we measure the distance from BanAras to GhAzipur with the compasses, on the map, we find the direct distance in a straight line, to be exactly 39 miles to the north-east from BanAras; but the distance as travelled by road may probably be about 45 miles at the utmost. Now, the travelled distance of 50 miles from BanAras, men¬ tioned by Hiuwen Thsang, would probably be only about 45 miles direct, if measured in a straight line on the map; and this distance of 45 miles eastwards from BanAras would place the capital of Chen-chu about 6 miles to the east, or rather east-south-east, of GhAzipur, or exactly on the very line which one of my previously proposed measure¬ ments of 30 miles from Baliya reached. Moreover, GhAzipur is situated north-east, and not east, from BanAras. This result again throws GhAzipur entirely out of our reckoning. My idea therefore is that the site of the capital of Chen- chu has been washed away by the river; and I may here remark that there are traces of an old bed of the Ganges to the south of the present one, which ran from a point about 2 miles to the north of Nasratpur, north-eastwards close to the north of Reotipur, at a general distance of about from 5 to 6 and 7 miles to the south south-south-east, and south-east of GhAzipur. Reotipur is exactly 30 miles to. the south-west from Baliya. SARAN, AND GHAZIPUK. 9 > I may however mention that there is a village called HemrAjpur 2o| miles to the west-south-west from Baliya, 14! miles to the east-north-east from GhAzipur, and about 54 miles to the north-east from BanAras. The name of HemrAj- pur would appear to mean the town of the king of gold,, But the excessive distance from BanAras puts this spot entirely out of the question altogether. Then again 8| miles to the south-south-east-half-south from HemrAjpur, we have, on the north bank of the Ganges, the ancient mounds of ruins named Ambirikh and Chetiya, which have already previously been mentioned by me. This ancient site is 22$ miles to the south-west from the DharmA- ranya at Baliya, and 54 miles to the east-north-east from BanAras. The excessive distance from BanAras, however, puts this site also entirely out of the question. Let us now draw a straight line on the map from BanAras to Baliya, and we shall find that the total distance in a direct line is 74! miles. But the sum of Hiuwen Thsang’s two distances of 50 miles and 33 miles, taken together, amounts to 83 miles, which is 8-| miles in excess of the actual direct distance in a straight line; and this excess of 8-| miles has to be allowed for crooked roads, or winding tracks, in travel¬ ling, in the time of Hiuwen Thsang ; and certainly the allow¬ ance is not at all too much. Now, if we make an equation as follows—as Hiuwen Thsang’s total travelled distance of 83 miles, between BanAras and the Aviddhakarna, or Dharma- ranya Monastery, is to the first part of his travelled distance of 50 miles, between BanAras and the capital of Chen-chu, so is our total actual direct distance, of 74J miles, from BanAras to the DharmAranya at Baliya, as measured on the map in a straight line, to the first part of our required direct distance, in a straight line from BanAras to the capital of Chen-chu— we then get as the result a small fraction under 45 (or 44T) miles, as the direct distance in a straight line from BanAras to the capital of Chen-chu, and if we deduct this first part of the actual direct distance, namely, 44— or 45 miles, from the total actual direct distance of 74^ miles, we have 29-fo- or 30 miles left for the actual direct distance from 9 2 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, i lie capital of Chen-chu to the Avuldhakarna or Dharm&ranya Monastery at Baliya. If we noty take the compasses and on our straight line previously drawn measure 30 miles from Baliya south-westwards in the direction of BanAras, and then, again on the same straight line measure 45 miles fiom Bandres north-eastwards in the direction of Baliya, the two measurements will meet at a point on the south bank 0! the Ganges, half a mile to the west of a village called Harshankarpur, and about 61 miles to the east-south-east-half¬ east from GhAzipur, but only 2 miles to the north-north-west from Reotipur, which, as I have previously pointed out, lies on the southern edge of an ancient deserted bed of the Ganges. Consequently, we might now, perhaps, be justified m supposing that the capital of Chen-chu may have been situated somewhere in the neighbourhood of Harshankarpur, the locality of which (though now on the south side of the river) must formerly have formed a part of an old north bank of the Ganges when it flowed in its ancient bed between Harshankarpur and Reotipur. But, as I have once before suggested, I think it is very. probable that the site of the capital of Chen-cbu may have long ago been washed away by the Ganges. However, as I have also previously ventured to hint, it is just possible that either Hiuwen Thsang or his copyists may hace made some error in the record of the two travelled distances of 50 miles and 33 miles; and if we might dure to alter them to 45 miles and 38 miles respectively, that would place the capital of Chen-chu at GhAzipur, as General Cunningham proposed. General Cunningham speaks of GhAzipur as being just 5 ° anles to the east of BanAras. Now all I can say is, that the direct distance, in a straight line, as measured on the map, is 39 miles; whde the travelled distance, or journey by road, the most round-about way, along the north bank of Ganges, at the present time, I find to be almost universally computed at about 44 to 45 miles! But by crossing to the south side of the Ganges, by the Chochak- » put NagAwa GhAt, and then crossing the intervening SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 93 peninsula to the Baluwa Ghkt, after crossing which latter a straight road leads to Ban&ras, the distance becomes still less, or only about 40 miles; that is, from the west end of the native town of GhSzipur, to the east end of the town of Ban&ra$ ; but if we reckon from centre to centre of each town, it will give about 2-| miles more. General Cunningham proposed Garjapatipura as an equi¬ valent for the Chinese term Chen-chu, or the capital of the Lord-of-battles, as applied to the town, because he believed that the modern Mu sal man name of Ghazipur was only at slight alteration of the (supposed) original Hindu nameGarj- pur. But besides Garjapati or Garjanapati, he gives several other proposed Sanskrit equivalents for the Chinese Chen-chu, such, for instance, as Yodhapati or Yodhar&ja, Yuddhanatha, Vigrahapati, and Ranaswami, &c.; to which I may add Ran&ditya, Sangr&man&tha, Sangr&mapati, Sangramasenb., Sangr&meswar, Ghams&napati, Saniarapati, Dh&rasena, &c„, &c. A consideration of all these various possible equivalent terms may perhaps eventually lead to the discovery of the true site. For instance, there is a place named Samanpur, in the maps, on the MangM River, about 8§ miles to the north- north-east-half-north of Ghkzipur. If the name of this place might be intended for Samarpur, it would, mean battle-town, and it might thus be a modern contraction of a former longer name, such as Samarapatipur, which would mean Lord-of- battle-town, the very thing we are in search of! The dis¬ tance from this place to Baliya is exactly 30 miles. Again, with regard to the place named Gahmur in the. maps, on the south side of the Ganges, about 14 miles to the south-east of Gh&zipur, if it were not for its excessive direct distance of 50 miles from Banaras, we might perhaps be permitted to imagine that the correct orthography of the name might possibly be Ghamaur, which might then be a corruption and contraction, through the course of time, of some older name, such as Ghamsan-pur or Ghamsinapatipur through the intermediate form of Ghams&naur! But, as I have said, the direct distance from Banaras is far too great. 94 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, I would, however, beg to call attention to a place called Udharanpur, nearly 2| miles to the west-south-west of Reotipur, and 6 miles to the south-east from Gh&zipur. At Udharanpur, and at a village called Tonga, i mile to the south of it, there are mounds of ruins, and these places lie on an ancient bed of the Ganges which I have previously referred to. It is possible that the name of Udharanpur might be a corruption of Yuddharanapura. SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 95 REPORT OF OPERATIONS DURING THE SEASON OF 1879-80. 2$. Ghdsipur .—In my previous report I have already stated that General Cunningham proposed to identify the site of the capital of the Kingdom of Chen-chu, or the Lord-of- battles, with Ghazipur, and that he proposed Garjapatipura as a Sanskrit equivalent for the Chinese rendering of the name, noticing at the sam„e time that Garjpur was said to be the original Hindu name of Ghazipur. I have also previously remarked that the capital of Chen- chu is stated by Hiuwen Thsang to have been situated 50 miles to the east of Ban&ras, and 33 miles to the west of the Aviddhakarna Monastery, which I have identified with the Dharm&ranya at Baliya, but that the actual position of Ghctzipur does not agree wi,th these distances, as Ghdzipur is only 39 miles in a straight line from Ban&ras, and the travelled distance by road is only about 45 miles, while the direction is north-east and not east. I have also remarked that the distance of Gh&zipur from the Dharm&ranya at Baliya, identified with the Aviddhakarna, is too great, as the direct distance in a straight line is 35^ miles, while the tra¬ velled distance by road given by Hiuwen Thsang is only 33 miles, which makes the matter impossible, as the travelled distance by road can never be less than the direct distance measured in a straight line on the map. Consequently, unless Hiuwen Thsang may have committed an error in his record of the distances, Gh&zipur would appear to be placed entirely out of the question. As to the original Hindu name of Ghizipur, I may state that some of the people seemed to think it had anciently been called Gddhipur, while others said they thought the name had been Gajpur, but there is some suspicion thrown upon this by the fact that the Hindus generally pronounce the present name ■ of the place as Gajipur. Some of the people also said that they had heard that the place had been founded by a Rlja REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, GAdhi, or GAth, or GAj, But this story I had already heard also long before I went to GhAzipur. At the same time, I think there can be very little doubt that the spot which the native town of GhAzipur occupies is an old site. On examining an exposed section of the high river bank on which the town of GhAzipur stands, one can see that the soil contains many fragments of old brick and pottery. There is an old site about 3 miles to the west of the town Oi Ghazipur near two villages called Hempur and Atraoli, and I hear that a copper-plate with an inscription has been found there since I visited GhAzjpur. Such a full account has already been given of GhAzipur by Mr. W. Oldham, C.S., in his Historical and Statistical Memoir of the GhAzipur District, that very little has been left for me to say. 26. Old sites to the west of Ghdsipur. —There is a dih, or mound of ruins, called Siuri ka RAj, near the south bank of the small Gangi River, to the south-east of a village called hermit, about 6-f miles to the south-west from GhAzipur. There is also a small mound to the west of the village, and another to the north, and another to the south. I take this name, Siuri ka RAj, applied to these mounds of ruins, to indi¬ cate the site of an ancient town which was founded by the Suirs or Saviras. There is a small conical mound dose to the north-west of Nandganj, and there is another mound about a mile to the south of that place. There is an old fort, over-growm with scrubby jangal, near Barbampur (the Burunpoor of the maps) about a mile to the south-west of Nandganj. There are two mounds of ruins near a village called SabuwA, on the south bank of the Gangi River, about 2 miles to the south of Nandganj. There is another mound of ruins to the west of Meharaoli, miles to the north-east of Chochakpur Ghat. 2 7 - Masaon Dih, Joharganj or Bdnhjhuldwan, or Dhand- war, and Krelulendtapura.—On the north bank of the* Ganges, about 22-jj miles by straight measurement, or about. SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 97 A'A ’ vAr ’’!'.,'■; v ?*‘ AA :'. A-fer % ■ v-’A 24 miles by road, to the west-south-west-half-west from Ghh- zipur, the large village and Tahsili of Saidpur or Saiyadpur is situated. It is 4|- miles to the south-west of Bhitari, where the inscribed Gupta Pillar is. About 2 miles to the north-west of Saidpur, and about Si miles to the west-south-west from Bhitari, there is a very large and high mound of ruins called Masaon Dih. About a mile to the south of Masaon Dih, and about miles to the west of Saidpur, and perhaps a little over a third of a mile to the west of a village named Budhoo- poor (Budhupur ?) in the maps, there is a village called Johar¬ ganj, which is not marked in the maps. This place is said to have been formerly called B&nhjhul&wan, from a mound of ruins on the northern edge of the road, close to the west of' Joharganj, where robbers, the chief of whom is said to have been the zamind&r of the place, laid in wait for travellers, and seized them by their arms and shook them about, until they made them give them what they wanted. The rendezvous of these robbers was in a house which formerly stood on the top of the mound of ruins. I excavated this mound of ruins, near Joharganj, in the centre, vertically downwards, to a considerable depth, even down to about even with the level of the river; and found in it a regular historical epitome, ranging from recent times back to th<* stone age ! In the uppermost portion of the mound, I found the remains of the ruins of an old house. Below that, I came upon the ruins of an old temple, and found some sculptured stones in it, on two of which there were short inscriptions. One of the inscriptions is important, as it gives the word Krelulendrapu(ra) as the ancient name of this old site, which includes also the great mound of ruins called Masaon Dih about a mile to the north of joharganj. A zamindAr of a neighbouring village said that the ancient name of the place was Kalandarpur, while a Brahman told me it was, Krelendrapur, or Krelendra-nagara; but on the stone, the name engraved seems to me to read plainly as Krelulendrapu (ra), the terminal p being somewhat defaced, and the final r being entirely broken away. The age of the 98 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, ' letters appeared to me to be about the twelfth century A,D. They are of exactly the same style as those of No. 7 of the Hindu mason’s marks on the Hindu pillars at the Kutb Masjid at Dehli, as given at the top of Plate XXXVII of Vol. I of the Reports of the Archaeological Survey. There the word Vilu or Bilu is in exactly the same style as the first portion, Krelu, of the inscription on the Joharganj stone. This discovery immediately put me in mind of an inscrip¬ tion on a coin described by Mr. Thomas at pages 94 and 95 of the Second Volume of Prinsep’s Essays on Indian Antiqui¬ ties. This is a coin of the Gupta series. There is a long but somewhat imperfect inscription on the coin, which Mr. Thomas proposed to read as Sri (Na)nda Gupta vikram- endrasya Sri Gupta Krilalendra. But Professor Fitz Edward Hall proposed to amend the reading as follows : Sri Nanda Gupta Vikramendrasya Sri Gupta KiUlendra. But to my mind, in the facsimile of the inscription which Mr. Thomas gives, the last name appears to me to read plainly as Kr-l-l-ndr, all the letters being entirely without any top vowel marks, and the only vowel visible being the u attached to the lower limb of the G, in the word Gupta. In the name Kr-l-I-ndr, the common r, curved to the left, is attached to the lower limb of the K, so that it cannot be read either as Kri, nor as Ki\ but it might be read either as Kr, or as Kre. I myself would therefore propose to read the word on the coin either as Kralalendra or as Krelalendra. But on the stone dug up on the spot, at Joharganj, the word, I think, appears to be plainly Krelulendra. We may therefore sup¬ pose that, the ancient city which occupied the side extending from the bank of the Ganges at Joharganj northwards to the great mound called Masaon Dih, was called Krelulendrapura, and that it was the capital of Sri Gupta Krelulendra. I would with much, diffidence venture to suggest that the name of Krelulendra might possibly be derived from the Sanskrit root Kr, to scatter, and either lol, moving, or lol , to desire, or to be eager; whence it might perhaps signify— moving to scatter, or eager to scatter, like Indra. But Masaon Dih is said to have had another ancient name, SAKAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 99 namely, DhanAwar, or, as some said, DinAwar. ft is certain that this ruined site is of more ancient origin than even the Guptas ; because f obtained some punch-marked and other very ancient coins there, which belong to an age antecedent to the rise of the Guptas. Perhaps, therefore, the other name of DhanAwar may be older than, and have preceded that of, Krelulendrapura. Now, in connection with this, it is somewhat remarkable that, among the ancient coins found at Masaon Dih, I obtain¬ ed two thin square copper coins, bearing an inscription which is the same in both, in the ancient Asoka lAt characters, and which I read as Dhana-devasa. The last part, of the name at least looks more like devasa than datasa; but it is immaterial for my present purpose which it is, so long as the first part is Dhana. And I would now venture to sug¬ gest that Dhana-deva (or Dhanadata.) may very possibly have been the original founder of this ancient place, and that therefore the original name of the place may have been DhanA-pura, which gradually became corrupted to Dhanawar, just as the ancient Indrapura of the copper-plate inscrip¬ tion of the time of Skanda Gupta, found at Indor Khera, in the Bulandshahr District, became changed to Indor, through the intermediate form of IndrAwar. I would then suppose that, on the rise of the Guptas into power, Sri Gupta Krelu- lendia made Dhanawar (the present Masaon Dih) his capital, and changed its name to Krelulendrapura. But I must now again proceed with my account of the results of my excavation in the mound near joharganj. On another stone I got a short inscription consisting of one single word, which appeared to read as TindatA. On another stone there was the.single word Driti. On another there was the single word Pan(cha). These are probably mason’s marks. On another stone there was a figure of a bird in rough outline, very rudely engraved. I also found a portion of the fallen kalsa of the former old temple; and also some fragments of statues, one of which was the upper portion only of the face'and head of a small stone statue, also a small sculpture in relief, in pale reddish-white sandstone, of Surya v «c XXII. u ' roo REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, in his chariot with four horses, and also a small broken figure of an elephant in white stone, with the lower portion only remaining of the figure of a man riding on its back, and a very small copper image of some female divinity. I also found a couple of very much defaced but old coins in the excavation,—one a moulded coin, and the other a punch- marked coin. Besides the above I found the following miscellaneous curiosities: an old broken crucible for melting metal; a small object of burnt clay, shaped something like a small shortened hourglass, or like the shape of a vertebral bone ; a horse’s head in clay ; some small earthen vessels; a very much rusted spear point, broken into three pieces; a rusted fragment of the blade of a small knife or dagger; a very fine thick piece of ancient black glass, or k&nch, very much resembling obsidian ; a small fragment of some thin metal vessel; two large pointed oval clay beads, with holes through them ; portion of an ivory armlet, or chfiri ; several very ancient-looking and ornamental churis, or armlets, kanch (broken) ; several agate beads of various shapes; a circular polished ornament of rock-crystal, roundly convex on one side and flat on the other; two iron arrow-heads; a copper torque(?) with bulb-shaped ends, about 6|- inches in length. I also found a good deal of ashes in spots here arid there. When I hacl got down to the bottom of the debris of the ruins of the old temple, I carried the excavations still further down below it, in order to see if I could find anything still older beneath all. It was here that I found a much worn copper punch-marked coin. At length I reached firm clay, interspersed with layers of sand and kankary gravel ; and in that 1 found a few specimens of what are (whether rightly or wrongly) generally called pre-historic remains. (Although, as to whether they are really entirely pre-historic or not, after all, may be at least a doubtful question, At any rate these few remains last discovered, in the lowest portion of my excavation, were lying in very unhistoric-Iooking clay, &c., and at. a great depth, apparently about on a level with the river.) These few remains consisted, in the first place, of a SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. IOI curious-looking little celt, made of very dark-coloured stone, and polished, especially towards the edge, and of which the width across the blade measures a little less than i | inches and the breadth backwards about i-§- inches, the width across the narrow butt-end at the back being three'quarters of an inch. But evidently the back of the implement must once have ended in a long conical point (for insertion into a handle) ; and the point having probably got broken off in the course of use, it has been rubbed down pretty smooth into a blunt sort of butt. The cutting edge spreads out wide, like that of a small broad axe. This implement very much resem¬ bles one described and figured by Mr. Evans at page 115, fig. 71, of his Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain, only that my specimen is much broader in the blade. My small celt is a polished one ; but Mr, Elvans has another small short broad-bladed celt of this shape, described and figured at page 87, fig. 42 of his work. But in this case his speci¬ men is a chipped one, only partly polished on one side and at the edge. These kinds of implements, if pushed with the blade forwards, would do as fleshing instruments for cleaning the inside of raw hides. Another stone implement found by me in the same ex¬ cavation is now evidently only a portion of its original length. It has been broken short off at one end, owing to a natural joint in the stone; and there it shows a nearly square section, with three sides straight, and one side curved or rounded. What I call the upper flat, part of the implement has a portion of a high raised keel running longitudinally along its centre. The opposite side, which I call the bottom, or under side, is somewhat rounded. I think this implement must have been used as a rubber, grinder, or polisher; and that it must have been held by the raised keel on the back, between the first two fore-fingers and the thumb. This implement is ij inches in length, by 1J inches in thickness one way, and a little over an inch the other way. In this excavation I also got two pieces of red hematitic clay-ironstone, called geru, rubbed or pojished down into several smooth flat facqs. They must evidently have been 102 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, used for making paint or colour. (It will hereafter be sCen, that about a year afterwards, I found similar pieces of rubbed- down geru, or red hematite, along with stone implements, in excavations which I made in some caves, in the North Riwa hills, on the south of the Mirzapur District.) Lower down in the same excavation at Joharganj, in the Gh&zipur District, I also obtained a core, of apparently some kind of black jasper, having five facets on it, from which flakes had been struck off; also, a thick flake of dark silici- ous stone, with three facets on it, from which three smaller flakes had been struck off; also a small long, thin, or nar¬ row-shaped, core, of greyish white jasper, with seven facets on it, from which small long narrow flakes had been taken off ; also, several worked flakes of agate, one of which appeared to be the point of an arrowhead. Along with the stone implements, I also found two rather strange objects. One was a large poison fang of a snake. This fang measured more than i| inch in length ! The other was the long sharp saw-edged fin bone, or spine, of some fish of the kind called Tengra. Both of these objects appeared to be very ancient, and to have lost all trace of animal matter; and they were very brittle. I have no doubt they were used by the aborigines of the “StoneAge” to tip their arrows with. In this excavation, along with others of its surroundings, therefore, as I have said, I verily found an historical, or rather chronological, epitome, ranging from recent times and the middle ages back through the age of the Guptas and that of their predecessors in early Buddhist times, to the earliest period, when the GhiDipur District was a wilderness, inhabited by rude pre-historic wandering aboriginal tribes ! It is worthy of remark that not a single article of metal, nor any pottery either, was found with the stone implements in the lowest stratum which I reached, at the bottom of my deep pit of excavation. The greatest depth reached in my excavation was about 33 feet below the top of the mound, or about from 18 to 20 feet below the mean level of the surrounding ground. About 1,000 feet or so to the south-east of this mound, SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 103 there was another rather conspicuous high mound of ruins, on the bank of the river; and close to the west of that (and to the south of the excavated mound), and to the south side of the road, there were some lower mounds of ruins, and several broken weatherworn sculptures, and fragments of statues of Hindu divinities, lying on the ground. The pre¬ cipitous face of the bank of the river, opposite this spot, is full of ancient broken bricks and fragments of pottery. I also visited two smaller ruined sites, or low mounds of ruins, to the west of the village of Aonrih&r, which is situated about 2J miles to the westnorth-west-half-west from Said- pur,—or about -£- mile in the same direction from Joharganj, and about 1 mile to the south-west from Masaon Dih. Of ancient coins found at Masaon Dih and Joharganj, I obtained altogether sixty-one; and also one heart-shaped copper medal, bearing Buddhist symbols, and intended for suspension round the neck. The following is a list of the coins:— Five oblong-shaped, punch-marked, copper coins; one of them only bearing the remains of a legend, in the ancient Asoka kit character, which appears to read as “y-Achala- varma.” The word “ Achalah ” appears to have had some word preceding it, which terminated with a y: and the termi¬ nal word, whiqh I read as “ varma,” is not certain, as the small letters are much rubbed, and not distinct. A small, thick, defaced copper coin, spoilt in mould ; but had a rude human bust on it. Forty-five square copper coins, with an elephant on one face, and five Buddhist symbols on the other. Two thin square copper coins, of a larger size; with, on one face, an elephant, with a pillar or standard, surrounded by a Buddhist railing, in front of it; and above that a legend, in the ancient Asoka characters, which I read as—Dhand- devasa (or Dhand-datasa). On the other face five Buddhist symbols. These two larger coins are of exactly the same type as the forty-five smaller ones ; only that the two larger ones bear inscriptions, while the smaller ones never have any. Another broken coin of the same type. 104 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, A round copper coin, with an elephant, on one face ; and a chaitya, or stfipa composed of three arcs and surmounted by an umbrella, on the other. Around copper coin, with a bull (?), to right, on one face, and above, to left, a cross of which the four arms ter¬ minate with a ball. On the other face five symbols, differ¬ ing from those of the preceding coins. A defaced copper coin, probably of the same type as the last. A much worn copper coin, with linear human figure stand¬ ing ; of the same type as what are known as the copper Bud- dhist-Satrap coins. An alloyed-silver coin, of the degraded Indo-Sassanian type, and allied to the Var&ha Dramma series. A copper coin, of Sri PratApa. A gold coin, of Sri Mad-Gangeya Deva. Among the ruins at Joharganj 1 observed some bricks measuring 13! inches in length, by 9 inches in breadth, inches in thickness. To the south, west, and south-east of Masaon Dih, and about three-quarters of a mile to the north of joharganj, there are traces of an ancient, river bed, probably an ancient branch of the Ganges. It appears to commence to the west of Bhitari, apparently from the right bank of the Gangi River, and to run thence westwards and south-westwards, until it passes close by the southern edge of Masaon Dih. From thence it turns gradually south-westwards, and south south- westwards, until it reaches the banks of the Ganges, just where it is joined by the Gomati River. We may therefore suppose that the Gomati, Ganges, and Gangi Rivers were in ancient times all three connected by a river channel, on the north bank of which the citadel of the ancient city of Krelendra-nagara or Dhan&war (Dhanfl-pura?) was situated. I he dimensions of the great mound of Masaon Dih are as follows: It measured about 1,500 feet in length from east to west, by about 1,000 feet in breadth from north to south at the west end, and about 600 feet in breadth at the east end. The highest point of the mound rises to a height of, probably, SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 105 nearly 50 feet above the surrounding fields, while the height of the rest of the mound varies from about 20 to 30, and in some places perhaps 40 feet. There is a tank called Kalwari-ka-Pokhra, with high em¬ bankments on two sides, at a short distance to the north of the great mound. A portion of a small terra-cotta figure was found on the mound, and also one of those small circular, slightly-orna¬ mented objects of pottery, about half an inch in thickness, of which I have found a good many on other ancient mounds; and as there is no hole through the centre and they are of equal thickness throughout, 1 take them to have been used as gotis for pachisi, or draughtsmen. On parts of the mound, mostly near the edge, there are narrow, circular wells lined with cylinders of earthen-ware measuring 2$ feet in diameter. These wells might be kot- hilas for storing grain ; but in that case they would all be higher up on the mound in order to escape from water enter¬ ing at bottom. Consequently the majority of them which are near the edge were probably wells for drawing water; while the few that are on the upper part of the mound may have been used, either for the other purpose above referred to, or for some other. The whole of this great mound is entirely waste and un¬ occupied, and covered with trees. 28. Chandraoti, or Chandrdvati .—There is an old place called Chandraoti, or Chandrdvati, on the left bank of the Ganges, about3 miles to the south of the junction of the Gomati, 7I miles to the west of Bairdnt, and about ii| miles to the north-east from Banaras. The place is said to have been founded by a Rdja Doman Deo, or Domana Deva. The ancient site is situated on the very brink of the river bank. It consists of ancient ruined ramparts forming an irregular figure, and surrounding the present village of Chandrdvati. It is full of old bricks and pottery. There are three rather plain Jain temples there, of no very great age. Chandrd¬ vati is a site well known to the Srawakis or Jains. J06 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, The largest of the old bricks measured 9^ inches by 6 by 2 inches. 29. Chiraiya-Kot.— Chiraiya-Kot, about 25 1 miles to the north-west of Gh 4 zipur, is a very ancient site, and many ancient punch-marked coins have been found there. But it is so well known, and has been visited by so many people, and is, besides, of such small size, that it does not require much description. It is a square-shaped mound of earth, measuring about 160 feet from north to south, by about 150 feet from east to west. It is situated in the middle of the village, and a modern school-house is built on the top of the mound. There is an old tank to the north of the village, with a mound on the south side of it. This mound is higher than that in the village, but it may perhaps have been formed merely by the earth which was dug out of the tank. jo. Gdrha-Jta-kot. —G&rha-ka-Kot is an ancient site, situated nearly 6 miles to the north of Chiraiya-Kot, and on the bank of a large jhil close to the north of a village called Bhatri. The River BhaisM takes its rise from the Jhil. This ancient site is also called R&j Bhar-ka-Kot. I am indebted for the discovery of this place to my writer B&bu Budh Rim. The entire extent of this ancient site measured about 2,400 feet from north to south, by about 1,500 feet from east to west. The whole of this extent of ground is covered with fragments of bricks and pottery. On this, at the distance of about 1,300 feet from the northern limit of the traces of ruins, 500 feet from the southern limit, 600 feet from the eastern limit, and 400 feet from the south-western limit, there is an old ruined fort, covered with jangal, which measured 600 feet from north to south, by 500 feet from east to west. The jhil approaches near to the fort on the western side. In the fort, at the distance of about 400 feet from its western side, there is a ruined conical-shaped mound of bricks, which has a circumference of about 100 feet, and a perpendicular height of about 1 1 feet. It may possibly be a ruined stupa. Bricks actually seen on this mound measured 13 inches, SARAN, AND GHAZ1PUR. I O' by 8|-, by 2 inches. But it. is said that bricks have been found there upwards of 2 feet square and very thick. The popular story is that the fort was built or occupied by Bharsj but there seems reason to believe that the founda¬ tion of the ancient site must be far more ancient than the time of the Bhars. The people say that, some of them were once digging a well for a SAdhu, who lived on the mound, and at the depth of 36 feet they found a chulha, or fire-place, and two earthen pitchers, one of which was filled with grains of sAwAn, and the other was filled with grains of kodo, all charred. There is also a superstitious story current, to the effect that at night some mysterious being, riding on an elephant, comes on to the mound, and performs the horn sacrifice there; and that afterwards the ashes of the hom and elephant dung are sometimes found there. 3/. Khaim Dih .—Khaira Dih is the ruined site of a_ very ancient city, situated on the right bank of the Ghagra River, close to the north-north-west of TurtipAr, in the GhAzipur District, and exactly opposite to BhAgalpur. That which represents the fortified portion of the ancient city, enclosed by broken ramparts and ruined walls, measured 1,600 feet from north to south, by 1,500 feet from east to west. The present village of Khaira is situated on the eastern ram¬ part. Signs of ancient inhabitation, however, extend for some distance to the south and south-east, in the direction of TurtipAr. Khaira Dih is said to have been the residence of Jama- dagni Rishi, and the birth-place of his son ParasurAma, the fabled destroyer of the Kshatriyas. It is said that Parasu¬ rAma, on leaving Khaira, went to SohnAg, an ancient place in the Gorakhpur District, about 8 or 10 miles to the north¬ wards of BhAgalpur, and there performed tapassya; and there is a temple with a statue of ParasurAma at SohnAg, and an annual fair is held there on the 3rd of the Sudi of BaisAkh. About 6 miles to the west of Khaira Dih, there is a large jhil or lake called Raktoe, where it is said that SahasrabAhu jo8 REPORT OK TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, was killed by Parasur&ma; and it is fabled that the blood t which flowed from Sahasrab&hu formed a lake, and was therefore called Raktoe. A small river called the H&hfi flows out of this lake and runs north-eastwards to join the Gh&gra. i Bricks actually seen at Khaira measured i foot 2-| inches by 11 inches by 3 inches ; but much larger bricks are re¬ ported to have been found there, which are said to have measured 2 feet by 1 foot 6 inches by 5^ inches. Five ancient coins were obtained at Khaira Dih. Three of them are Indo-Scythic ,- one of them being a copper coin of Kadpluses of the usual type ; another is a copper elephant and rider coin of Ooerki or Huvishka; the third may be either of Ooerki or Kanerki. A fourth coin is very large and thick, having a curious device like a flower; with some other symbols, and apparently some traces of an inscription, on one face ; and some large unrecognisable device on the other face. The fifth is a small square coin with Buddhist symbols, and of a similar type to many that were found at Masaon Dih. It is said that immense numbers of coins of the Indo-Scythic type are annually found at Khaira Dih, and sold by the ser and melted down. 32. Bairdntj or Vairanta .—To the south of the Ganges, about 6? miles to the south-south-east from Said pur, about 16 miles to the north-east from Ban&ras, and about 22| miles to the south-west from Gh&zipur, there is a very extensive ancient site called Baidfnt, situated on the south-east bank of a loop-shaped river-channel which is called the B&n Ganga, but which is in reality some former ancient bed, or back-water, of the Ganges. All the people of that part of the country will have it that this is the true Vairata, where it is said that the Pandus hid themselves during the last year of their enforced banishment. But. the real name of the place to the south of the Ganges, at present under consideration, is Bair&iit, or in Sanskrit Vair&hta; while on the contrary the true Vair&ta was situ¬ ated in the Matsya country; and it has already been identi¬ fied with Bair&t in R&jput&na. SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 109 Another instance of an imaginary Vair&ta, or rather Vairht-khera, was discovered by General Cunningham at a 1 11 1 n ' 1 1 .. . L 4- It n *-+• |-» r V m place called Barikhar, 42 miles to the north-north-west from Nimsar, and 68 miles to the south-south-east from Pilibhit, General Cunningham of course concluded that the idea was derived simply from a slight similarity of name; though he remarks that the true name of the place appears to be Badishar. But this is not the only case of Brahmanical duplex iden¬ tification of ancient historical sites which I have met with; for 1 have found several other doubles, or attempts at duplex dentiftcations of sacred or historic sites, which have origin¬ ated with the Brahmans, for reasons best known to them¬ selves. (Probably in order that they might always be sure of securing their profits, perquisites, and pickings from pil¬ grims in either one or other of two or more places in differ¬ ent parts of the country or in both at once.) For instance, , there are two different places widely separated, both of which are reputed to represent the ancient Vy&ghrapura of the Pur&nas, where the Var&ha AvaCir of Vishriu is said to have taken place; namely, r, Baghera in Rajputana ; and 2, the Bar&h Chbetr or Var&ha Kshetra, on the Kuano River, in the Basti District, which has been identified as the Vy&ghra- puri or Koli of the Buddhist traditions, where Maya Devi (the mother of S&kya Buddha) was born. Secondly, there are two different places also widely sepa¬ rated, both of which are reputed to be the ancient Santipur or Shronitpur, the capital of B&nftsur; namely, 1, Mas&r (or Mahas&ra) near Ar 3 in Bihar; and 2, Bijaymandar Garh (or Viyayamandar Garh) near Baiana in Rajputana, the ancient name of which really was Santipur, and the ancient name of Baiina is said to have been Banasura or Banlsur-nagara. Thirdly, there are three different and still more widely separated places, all of which have the reputation of being the site of the traditional Kundalpur, the capital of Raja Bhishmak, where Krishna is said to have carried off his bride Rukmini; namely, 1, Bidar in Southern India, identified no REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, with the ancient city of Vidarbha, or else some other ancient site in the country or kingdom of Vidarbha; 2, Baragaon in Bihar, which the Brahmans say is the site of Kundalpur, but which General Cunningham has identified as the site of the ancient Nalanda ; and 3, AhAr, on the Ganges^ in the Bulandshahr District, to the north of Anupshahr. But, how¬ ever, at all events, wherever the legendary Kundalpur may be supposed to have been, it is quite certain that Vidarbha was in Southern India, and it has been identified with Bidar ; though the Hindus of the Bulandshahr District will have it that AhAr is the site of Kundalpur. In a foot-note to my former report on AhAr, General Cunningham has animad¬ verted on my quoting from RAja Kuar Lachman Singh his expression Bidar, or the Berars of Central India. But Gene¬ ral Cunningham seems to have forgotten that he himself formerly actually made use of the very same expression, namely, Vidarbha or Berar at page 28 of volume 1 of the Reports of the Archaeological Survey of India. I could bring forward several other instances of the same sort; but the above are quite sufficient of their kind to prove the duplicity, in more senses than one, of such Brahmanical traditions. I may, however, add just one more instance which attracted my attention while writing another report of the previous season. Baliya, to the east of Ghazipur, is re¬ puted to have been the site of the hermitage of the Rishi \ almiki, but there is also a spot (a mound surmounted by a temple), on the bank of the Ganges close to BithAr, north of Kanpur (or Cawnpore), which is called Valmiki-ki-Kuti, where his hermitage is reputed to have been. The country about Bitbur is still called BrahmA-varta, and a great mela or fair is held there annually in honour of Brahma. Having thus paved the way, by removing a popular error, I may now proceed with my description of BairAht. The ancient site of BairAnt consists, first, of a very ancient ruined fort, on the eastern edge of the BAnganga Nadi ; and, se¬ condly, of the site of a former ancient town, which is a high ground running from the fort for a long distance southwards, and then for a little distance south-westwards, along the bank SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. I I f of the old river. The old fort is of earth-work, but contain¬ ing many ancient broken bricks. The fort is nearly a paral¬ lelogram, which measured about 1,350 feet in length from north to south, by about 900 feet from east to west. Its sides consist of ramparts from 70 to 100 feet in thickness, parts of which are still pretty high, while in some places they have been broken down or cut through by small pluvial water channels. There are the remains of high earthwork bastions at three comers of the fort, namely, on the north-eastern, north-western, and south-eastern corners. The sites of ancient gate-ways can still be distinguished in the four sides of the fort, but speci¬ ally in the northern and southern sides. More than a third of the southern part of the interior of the fort is low. The ground then rises northwards for about one-third more; and the northern fourth part of the interior of the fort is still higher. Close inside of the north-eastern bastion, there is the site of some large building. About the middle of the southern part of the interior of the fort, there is a small conical mound of ruins with a stone linga on the top of it. There is another stone linga on the summit of the middle of the western rampart. The old exterior ditch of the fort is quite plainly discernible on the northern and southern sides. About 380 feet to the north of the fort, the present village of BairArit is situated; and there is an additional small tola , or hamlet, to the south-west of it, and only 270 feet from the fort. There is a long mound 150 feet to the north-north¬ east of the village. Two thousand and fifty feet to the north of the village there is an old embanked tank, called Bhaktin-ka-TalAo, with a small temple on the west side of it. Three hundred and twenty feet to the north of the tank, there is a small mound of ruins; and about 630 feet to the west of the tank there is a temple called RAmsAla, where an Aoghaf Mahant and his disciples live. About a quarter of a mile to the north of the RAmsala, lies the village of RAmgarh. There is some high ground, containing fragments of ,brick and pottery, about 650 feet to the north-east of the village of BairArit. About 230 feet to the east-south-east of I 12 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, the village, there is a large statue of Hanurn&n on a platform under a tree. Two hundred and seventy feet to the south-west from the south-western corner of the ancient fort, and at the very edge of the old river, there is a small conical mound of ruins called Devi-ka-Th&n. About 450 feet to the south of the fort, there are the remains of a high ancient rampart, running east and west, like a long narrow ridge, for about 1,400 feet. Close to the south of that, and on the high bank of the Bdn- ganga River, but divided from the long rampart by a deep cut, there is a large, broad, flattish-topped, and somewhat rectan¬ gular-shaped mound, or high ground, which measured about 800 feet from north to south, by about 600 from east to west. On it there was a small heap or mound of bricks and stones, with a broken arghd of a linga lying on it. The whole of the surrounding ground is full of fragments of ancient brick and pottery. To the south of this there is a nhla; and 1,200 feet to the south of that, on the high bank of the river, there is a very small village called Kakrahti, with two old indigo factories near it, one to the north and the other to the south of it. To the south of the village there are two deep n&las. Again, about 2,000 feet to the south of Kakrahti, and also on the high bank of the river, there is a village called Rasiilpur, with a high conical mound at its south-western corner. The whole of this extent of ground, on the high eastern bank of the Bdnganga, thus far south¬ wards from the old fort, has evidently been the site of an ancient town; and fragments of old brick, but principally of old pottery, are constantly being turned up by the plough. But this is not all; for the site of the ancient town extends along the high river bank for about 3,000 feet further to the south, or rather somewhat south-west from Rasul- pur, for the bank of the river takes a south-westerly turn from that village. Towards the southern end of this con¬ tinuation of the ancient site, there is a gently sloping round- topped mound, which is full of fragments of brick and pottery. Close to the north of it there is an ancient gh^t. lead¬ ing down to the river. To the south of this, and at the most south-westerly point, or termination, of the site of the ancient city, there is a high earthen bastion, much furrowed by the running off of water during the rains. Close to the south of this there is a mound of ruins, with a linga on the top of it, round about which I found several fragments of sculpture collected together. Two of these I brought away with me. They consist of imperfect portions, or pieces, of small square pillars, which must apparently have belonged to a stone rail¬ ing, as one of them has narrow, oblong, rectangular-shaped sockets in three of its sides. They are each sculptured on three sides. On three sides of one of them there is a strangely burlesque-looking face; and above each, divided off by a sculptured band, there is a semi-circular ornament, some¬ thing like what is found on some varieties of Buddhist railing pillars. On the other fragment there is a kind of ornament which it is difficult to describe, but which I think, has a Buddhist look about it. The whole length of the site of the ancient city, inde¬ pendent of the fort, and counting from the fort southwards, is about 7,700 feet by one mode of measurement, or about 8,000 by another; or a little less than i| mile. But if we include the fort also, the total length of the entire ancient site is upwards of if miles, or say nearly 2 miles. Indeed, if we include a few small mounds to the north of the fort, about the village of Bairint, we get as near as possible about 2 miles for the entire length of this ancient site. The breadth of the site of the ancient city, from the bank of the river backwards, or from west to east, is not so easily ascertained; because the ground to the east has been much levelled down, and the old eastern boundary much obliterated by cultivation and by the cutting in of fields. But as far as 1 could ascertain by careful personal examination, the breadth of the site of the ancient city, from east to west, towards its northern end, appeared to be about 2,000 feet, while to¬ wards its southern end it decreased to about 1,400 feet and j,ooo feet, and at its extreme southern termination to only $.bout. 800 feet. The ancient city appears to have been bounded on the vol. xx n. 1 114 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, extreme east, by another more shallow, ancient river-bed, which is now dried up; but which becomes flooded with shallow water during the rains, and is therefore used as rice-ground. On the east side of this, and about 2,011 feet to the south-east from the ancient fort of Bair&nt, there is an old village called Pras&dpur, which stands on a mound of ruins; and close to the north of the village there is a very ancient tank with high embankments and some very old trees growing on them. Very ancient coins are found at Bairint. I myself and my servants together picked up 101 coins on this ancient site. The following is a list of them :— 20 oblong rectangular-shaped copper punch-marked coins of the most ancient type; only three of them bearing single letters of an archaic type,—one of them appar¬ ently S, another L, and another J,—punched into them. 2 square silver punch-marked coins. 2 round silver punch-marked coins. 1 oblong copper coin, blank. 1 ancient copper coin coated with silver. 1 ancient square copper Buddhist coin, with lion and Bodhi tree on one face and the Buddhist tri-ratna symbol on the other. 1 small square copper Buddhist coin with a chaitya sur¬ mounted by two umbrellas on one face and an elephant on the other. 2 round copper Buddhist coins with chaitya on one face and elephant on the other. 1 round copper Buddhist coin with chaitya. 1 small square copper coin with a horse (?) on one face and a tree (?) on the other face. 21 square copper coins of the same type as some of those found at Masaon D'ih, namely, with an ele¬ phant, and three symbols on one face and a Bodhi tree, chaitya and double cross, and a small symbol like the Asoka form of the letter M on the other face, 1 much worn square-shaped copper coin, broken at onp edge, with a rude indistinct device somewhat resemb- SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. l <5 ling the figure of a man with some animal (a lion ?) rampant beside him. 2 much worn copper Indo~Scythic coins, one of the Kan- erki type and one of the couch lounger (Ooerki) type. i oval copper coin of Jyesthadatta, the name being in ancient Asoka characters. 5 much worn copper coins of the Buddhist Satrap type; and one of them retaining the word Khatrapasa on it. 4 copper coins of Vijaya Mitra. 4 small copper coins of the Mitra dynasty of the peacock and palm tree type. 4 other defaced coins of the type of the Mitra dynasty. 4 silver coins of the degraded Indo-Sassanian type. 14 ancient but defaced coins. 92 ancient Hindu coins—Total 9 Muhammadan coins, of which three are of Ala-uddin Muhammad Shah, Khilji, and the rest are of the old jaunpur dynasty. 101 coins-—Grand total. From the preponderance of ancient punch-marked coins in this collection, it is evident that Bair&ht must be a very old place indeed. Of other objects of a different kind, mostly picked up in nAlas in the old fort, I may mention the following:— I found two curved and tapering articles of bronze (?) or of some alloy of copper, about 4! inches in length (round the curve), and one small one about -f inch in length. These articles are very much curved,—thick at one end and taper¬ ing to a point at, the other,—and shaped very much like miniature elephant’s tusks. I also found numerous large beads of agate, cornelian, onyx, and rock-crystal, and also one large ornamental bead of ivory. Also a piece of a broad ivory or shell armlet. Also a piece of some ancient vessel or platter of some kind, of grey stone, with a shell or sankh-pattern engraved ori it. Also a thick fragment of some copper vessel. n6 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, Also an iron arrow-head, much eaten away by rust, and the point of another iron arrow-head ; also the point of the blade of an iron sword, or spear or dagger-knife; also a curious three-pointed object of copper. I also found numerous small articles of copper, and also of some mixed metal (bronze?., such as broken rings, &c., and two articles of twisted bronze (?) wire, one with a loop or whole at the end of it, and also a curious little long lozenge-shaped metal object, with pointed ends and a hole through the middle of it. And lastly, I found two small relics of quite recent times, namely, two small articles of iron, partly inlaid with gilt orna¬ mentation, which I took to be the hinge-slide covers or cheek pieces of the priming pans of match-locks ! But I have now to mention some relics of still greater antiquity than even the punch-marked coins, or, indeed, of unknown antiquity. In the fields, and in the nAlas, or ravines, about this ancient site, I also found some few specimens of ■ so-called pre-historic remains, consisting chiefly of cores an'd flakes, of agate, &c,, namely:— Eight worked cores, of agate. Nine worked flakes, of agate. A worked flake of some glossy grey-coloured sort of stone, or other substance, of light weight. (Query, fossilized organic substance ?) Two very small worked flakes, of black chert. One very small flake, of opaque brown-coloured stone. A small roughly polished, conical object, of agate; such as might have been used as a piece in some game like chequers. A small piece of geru (red hematitic clay-ironstone), rubbed down smooth on three sides by human agency,—evi¬ dently to make paint, or colour. A small roughly-polished, conical object, of bluish grey stone. A curved piece of some ornament, made of shell, (?) evi¬ dently ground into shape. Thus at Bair&ht also (as well as at Joharganj and S'ARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. II 7 Masaon Dih), I obtained, in the relics which I found, a regular historical epitome,—ranging from the stone age, and through the succeeding age of copper and bronze, and of rude punch-marked money, up to the age, of iron, and of mould-minted and inscribed money; and thence on up to recent times ! In a former Report of mine on Indor Khera, in the Bulandshahr District, it will be seen that in an excavation there, I found a stone hatchet or celt, along with fossilized bones. I also found a couple of stone hammers, along with some portions of fossilized deer’s antlers in a deep excavation at Bhuila, in the Basti District. But I am not sure that this discovery was ever officially reported upon by me before. I also found worked flakes in Rajput&na, nearly nine years ago! Since, however, the submission of this present Report has been delayed for some time, I may now take this opportunity to state that, since then, I have found worked flakes and stone implements in the fields in the immediate neighbour¬ hood of the town of Banda:—besides celts, or stone hatchets, and stone hammers, and other stone implements, through the whole of Bundelkhand, and P&tar Kach 4 r; and, through the Sohawal State, stone implements also in the Nagod State, and thence down to the south of Maihar; and also, above all, among the hills of the Riwa Plateau, and in the southern part, of the Mirzapur District, and lastly, I have found some worked flakes, of agate and chert, in the fields in the im¬ mediate neighbourhood of the town of Mirzapur! The question now, therefore, is not—“where are stone im¬ plements to be found ? ” but rather—“ where are they not to be found ?” For, as far as my own experience goes, they appear to be findable almost everywhere in India, at least ! Might it. not perhaps turn out to be the same in other parts of Asia, as well as in Europe and America; or possibly .in all parts of the world? Indeed, if people only had eyes to see such things! Stone implements have hitherto been 118 REPORT OF TOURS IN GORAKHPUR, looked upon as rare wonders, but they cannot, and should not, be so any longer. Some of the ancient bricks at Bairaht had marks im¬ printed on them, which I recognised as letters of the ancient Asoka alphabet, very rudely formed. I recognised the fol¬ lowing letters, of which I shall here give the English equiva¬ lents for the sake of convenience; namely:— 1. —M. 2. —Y. 3. —Vi. 4. —Laha. 5. —R^sa, or DAsa. 6. —Raga, or Rata. jj. Hingtar, or Hengutar ; and Dhdnapur. —Hingtar consists of a village and a small fort, and is situated about 4 miles to the east of BairAnt. The proper name of the place would seem to be Hengutar; but the common people pro¬ nounce the name like Hingtar, or perhaps Hengtar. DhAnapur is situated about 6 miles to the east-north¬ east-half-east from BairAnt, and 2-J miles to the east of Hingtar, and has mounds of ruins on two sides of it. Both of these places are said to have been founded by RAjas belonging to a race or tribe called SuriyAn, whom I myself believe to have been Savaras. Of this race, there appears to have been a RAja called DhAna Deva, who founded DhAnapur. Could he have been the same as the Dhana Deva of the coins found at Masaon Dih, one of the old names of which was DhanAwar ? There is also some supposition about some Hengu RAwat having founded Hingtar or Hengu¬ tar. But, at all events, the founders of both places were SAriyAns. The remains at Hingtar consist of a small oblong-shaped fort, close to the south side of the village. The fort is sur¬ rounded by a ditch. Within the fort there are ruins both of brick and stone. The fort has been added to or rebuilt upon while in possession of the Muhammadans, and there are several blocks of stone bearing carving of Muhammadan SARAN, AND GHAZIPUR. 1*9 workmanship; but there are also several sculptured pillars, some standing and some fallen, which are of decidedly Hindfi workmanship. The interior of the fort was, however, so filthily dirty and offensive, that it was quite impossible to examine anything at all closely. I may, however, mention that there are the fallen ruins of a Masjid in the fort, and which was no doubt partly built out of Hindfi materials; but there is an inscription in Persian characters on a block of stone which must have belonged to the doorway of the building, and in this inscription I can distinguish the following: Tan&hi ul Masjid Gheyfts-ul-din baha w&l-din ans&ri itma ibn Murshid Masjid min shuhra. The remains at Dh&napur consist of an ancient fort, or kot, overgrown with trees, to the south-west of the village of Dh&napur; and of a mound of ruins about half a mile to the north-east of the village. The old fort of Dh&napur is, how¬ ever, only about a third of the size of that of Bair&nt. INDEX. A Anoma River A'soka, New Edict Pillar of . As u r a n - ka- Pokh a ra Asylum Stupa B Bair&nt, or Vairanta . Bainya BaitiUgarh . Bakra-dih Bar Forest and Mithabel Bara Shankar Baraicha . Bara on Bhawapar . Bhopa - Bherigarh . Bhiti . Bodh Barwa BuLkot . «. ' • C Chandaka’s Return, Stftpa of Chandraoti, or Chandravati. Changed Garments, Stftpa of Chen-chu, Kingdom of Cheran or Saran district . Chiraiya-kot Cut-hair, Stftpa of D Dewa-dth > Dhanapur .... Dharmaoti.... Dighwa-Duhaoli Domangarh Drona St&pa Page F Fazilnagar, near Pawa • *9 G Ghazipur .... • 95 H Harewa-Barewa. • 57 Harha Nadi, Mounds. • 47 Hingtar . . 118 J Janki-kot, or Jankigarh . 50 K Kakbu-Khari . • 7* Kanapar-Gangapar . 70 Khaira-dih . 107 Kusinagara 16, 58 L Lauriya, Mounds near • 3 6 M Madhuban-Bindraban • 57 Magahar .... • 7 2 Maneya . 2 Masaon-dih, old site . - 97 Matihaniya • 7i Maula-kot .... • 70 Mithabel and Bar Forest * 13 Moriyas, City of the . 7 Mounds, near Lauriya ■ 36 • 47 Page 3 5 * 68 77 io$ 7 2 70 71 13 57 7i 72 7i 15 70 7 ° 56 56 5 105 5 88 74 106 5 56 118 85 73 6S 78 122 INDEX. N Page i R&mgarh . . . Narayanpur . 75 Rampurwa, Asoka Pillar at. Ritdrapnra Narkataha-dih . • 71 New Edict Pillar of Asoka . • 50 S P Sarah ri-di'h Stfipa of Cut-hair Pawa or Chetiyaon • 19 —— of Chandaka’s Return Pillar of Asoka, new * . So ——- of Changed Garments R ,i-— Asylum ——- Dr on a Raja-bari . * 70 tr Rajdh&ni, or Upadhaoliya . 7 Ramagrama, near Rampur De- Upadaoliya or Rajdh&ni oriya . . 2 Uncha-dih Page , 1 ° • 5° 9 71 5 5 5 77 7»’ 7 57 Government of India Central Printing Olfice.—No. H. D.—4*11-85,—•650, Lithographed at the Survey of India Offices, Calcutta, February W80. S3 Kumbni^'a STUPA RAM PUR 0R |M RAMAGRAMA ^ Koliarwa Salih, ant a F&v-iija^ g/KOROM OR ^KOROWA OIH 0 ofed 132C 1580 2640 3300 6600 9$00 la^OO 1 _i_ 1 _ 1 _ 1 _i_I_I_! Cliandua ^ HarTuLy aJTal*^ Na^r a B h agwajvpirp Rzdnzd Temples JSkiia *H koraon-dih ea Scale 1 Inch = 3,300 Feet* Parari l 'f§S Pokhar % 33 vol. xxii. RAMAGRAMA. . plAtjs ii. <§L VOL. XXII K U.S I N A’G A R A PLATE III. LlUaofirapbed at the Survey of India Offices, Calcutta, January 1880. ELEVATION j Section of Mound shewing Platform of masonry, with Stupa on top. i A. C. CarUeyle, del. lithographed at the Survey of India Office*, Calcutta, February 1880. VOL. XXII. POSITION of ASOKA PILLAR PLATE VI © Sissfxyi A. C. Carlleyle, del. «. .•to-.. . A" . ■ <>\ A R ;la‘" j3tCs.fi... a ~ 0$ u»**h Mrxg’txPaha Poxnx-i Rarwa SenirtDili © Haj’pur ) / -/ S3 PARS. BURIED piLLAR / X *. I / l /IraMPURWA // SM andiha — I'Ll- • J 6 ar wa Jmm ■ Scale 4400 f2*Ii.ich . -aC. y' filiilxharw *<x saoo •moo a'ioo 3300 4400 liMimml 1 _ 1 _ 1 — ■ *& Lithographed at the Survey of India Office#, Calcutta, February 1886. SECTION OF EXCAVATION OF ASOKA PILLAR, R A M P U R W A, Vfaiter;: ... VO-vV: iflSS® Scale 10 Feet to one Inch. -to =d <SL VOL. xxn. RAMP UR W A. plate vm. LiUiotJraptiod at the Surrey of India Office*. Calcutta, February 1886. miSTQy A. G. Ca.Tlle.yle, del. PLATE IX. JOHARGANJ or BUDDHUPUR D H A Scale 1 1nch — (jOO Feet . O 300 600 900 Mound excavated containing the buried fouudatioTis of a. lithographed at the Survey of India Offices, Calcutta, February 1880. K re- ndra -puW M!N ISTfty lithographed at the Survey of India Offices, Calcutta, January 1886. lithographed at the Survey of India Offices. Calcutta, January 1880. Lithographed at the Survey of India Otficea, Calcutta, February 1886. ON THE BANGANGA NALA Eastern part of the Benares District South of the Ganges. 1.S00 Feet. Z6CV --i- 5400 f* 1 Scale 1 Inch = 1800 t i i ,t > • WON'* 0 ' PLATE XIV. VOL. XXII Da^Kitf Azirnai^ Ttatairpur .. Ghosi Mahal akpur Sikaridarpu] AZIMGARH V “Sliah^mii AtrarT drum dab ad o Gar Via Iarhakaki Lbirpur isa^cli /TalitTfaTm chireya kot Garwax Vr \ BARMAYAN#; >Amabradih AmuUiiri C hitv^ Mabai’aiu ° Sam aii pur Gandesar 0 ’oen “tvTo' |tc °Hen^rajpw 4G a shah VAola Mi [arainpiir y// ghaii arshankarpur lxyf« v - IHITARI MASAON DJ KRSl-UlXNPKAJf’UVA *"J^nk^anj * L ? - 9 Vj'ClKaraupu;r bairant AN DR AV ATI KH^NOA Ttasrathpur 5^°“ V •; t llATIYA Tiorio - )haiiay>ur jf.timwisb. i>Kuniara A. 0 . Garlleyle, dal. IGAVANA Xdtho^mpUad at the Surrey of India Offices, Calcutta, February 1M5.