Report of a Tour through the Bengal Provinces/Páwápuri
PÁWÁPURI.
Páwápuri is a small village close to and about 3 miles north of Giriyak, and is a great place of pilgrimage for the Jains, who have here two temples, one in the middle of the tank and connected with the land by a long causeway, the other in the village. Both of these are of very recent date; the one in the village appears, however, to stand on the site of an old temple. When I first saw it, it had not been quite finished, but it has since been completed. The statues may be ancient. There certainly are some ancient statues here, and I saw several about the temple in the village. These were slightly defective and consequently not worshipped; but I was not allowed to see the ones that are worshipped. (Captain Kittoe has noticed this place in Journal, Asiatic Society, Bengal, for 1847, p. 955.) This is said to have been the place where Mahâvira died. On the banks of the tank in which stands the temple is a round chaubutra with smaller chaubutras rising up in steps in its centre; a pillar occupies the centre of the whole. I could not ascertain what it was meant to represent, and I was not allowed to go up and see for myself. In the map which accompanied Mr. Broadley’s paper in the Journal, Asiatic Society, for 1872, Páwápuri is wrongly placed to the west of the road from Giriyak to Bihár; it is just to the east of the road.