Page:Bulandshahr- Or, Sketches of an Indian District- Social, Historical and Architectural.djvu/64

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BULANDSHAHR.

probably the oldest of the group. Another door-jamb, found in the courtyard of the mosque at Bulandshahr, is comparatively modern.

The Sarovar, or Tank, field, of which I have spoken above, is bounded on the north by an extensive mound, on which now stands the stable for Government stallions, and in levelling part of it I came upon two curious terra cotta figures, both alike, 5¼ inches high, representing a woman with a parrot, which she is about to feed with a fruit she holds in one hand. She has enormous ornaments in her ears and a variety of chains and bracelets about her. Another fragment—a head only—shows a chignon of most prodigious dimensions. In the absence of stone, the potter's art seems to have been largely developed for decoration and religious purposes, as is further indicated by a clay statue of the four-armed Krishna, which I discovered in breaking down an old well in the upper town. The exact date of these figures cannot be determined.

The Mánpur inscription gives Vikram-áditya as the name of Haradatta's son, and he is probably the same person as a Rája Vikram Sen of Baran, who figures in an Aligarh pedigree. The capital of that branch of the Ḍoṛ family is said to have been transferred from Jaláli to Kol by Buddh Sen, who was the son of Bijay Rám (brother of Dasarath Siñh, who built the fort at Jalesar) the son of Náhar Siñh, (founder of the Sambhal Fort) the son of Gobind Siñh, who was the son of Mukund Sen, the son of Rája Vikram Sen of Baran, Mangal Sen, who succeeded his father, the above-mentioned Buddh Sen, at Kol, is said to have given his daughter Padmávati in marriage to the heir of Rája Bhím of Mahrára and Etáwa, who soon after his accession was murdered by his younger brothers. The widow then returned to Kol, where her father built for her the tower, which was wantonly destroyed by the local authorities in 1860. It is, however, more commonly believed that the tower was erected by the Muhammadans in 1274 on the site of the principal Hindu temple, to commemorate the final reduction of the town in the reign of Násir-ud-dín Mahmúd. Possibly it had been built by the Rája and was only enlarged or otherwise altered by the conquerors.

Eighty years before the fall of Kol, viz., in 1193, the Ḍoṛ line of Rájas at Baran had come to an end in the person of Chandra Sen, who was killed while defending his fort against the army of Shaháb-ud-dín Muham-