mounds respectively. There is at Dhârapat a small temple, modern, or at least of recent times, but interesting from its dated inscription.[1]
CHHINPUR.
At Chhinpur is a solitary laterite temple, but of no ancient date.
BISHANPUR.
Bishanpur is famed as an old place, and certainly contains very many temples and other old remains, but their age is not such as to merit detailed notice of them. They are almost all built in the Lower Bengal style, with curved roof lines, and the ornamentation consists generally of sculptured or moulded tile-work. Some of these are very fine, and stand out the weather very well; they consist chiefly of scenes from the lives of Rama or the Pândus, but principally of Krishna, to whom, or to whose mistress, most of the temples are dedicated; the sculpture, as may be readily guessed, is not very chaste. The few photographs will convey a clearer idea of these temples than descriptions. There is also a large old fort, dating evidently to post-Muhammadan times, as evidenced by the remains of gateways which are of the Muhammadan type; in short, the place is full of remains of a certain age, not going beyond the middle of the sixteenth century Sake; they are of interest chiefly for their inscriptions, which I now proceed to notice briefly.
1. The oldest dated temple in Bishanpur is known as the Malleswar temple, the temple of Bishanpur, which has long been regarded as the oldest in Bishanpur, and as dating back to near the beginning of the Malla era, chiefly on the strength of the inscription of which Bishanpur enjoys its fame as a very ancient city; the inscription is dated clearly in Sake 928, but this is a mistake, the word Sake having through some oversight been put instead of Mallabda, and the proof of it is to be seen in the next few lines, where the temple is stated to have been built by Vira Sihha in the year Yasu Kara Hara Malla Sake, i.e., the year 928 of the Malla era. The error is so palpable, that I need not say any-
- ↑ The inscription consists of five long lines and three compartments of two lines each in Bengali characters. It is not in good order, but the date can be clearly made out as 1626 Sake, the 2 being, however, somewhat doubtful, it may possibly be 1616 Sake, but can be nothing else.
