Page:Report of a Tour Through the Bengal Provinces of Patna, Gaya, Mongir and Bhagalpur; The Santal Parganas, Manbhum, Singhbhum and Birbhum; Bankura, Raniganj, Bardwan and Hughli in 1872-73.djvu/43

Since the foregoing was written, General Cunningham has sent me a literal rendering of the passage of Hwen Thsang in question. His words are,—“on parting from this kingdom he crossed the Ganges to the north-east, made from 140 to 150 li, and arrived at the kingdom of Vaisâli.” Clearly the 140 or 150 li refers to the distance of Vaisâli from the Ganges; and so the accordance with my views is perfect.

Not far from the stûpa flows the Punpun river. Along its banks, at about 2 miles from Bhagwânganj, near a small village, are the remains of a stone and brick temple about 40 feet square: only a part of the basement of the temple, marked by a line of moulded stones, exists: the stone is granite roughly dressed into a plain moulding.

A mile or mile and a half further north aloiig the Punpun is a large mound about 45 feet square and 25 feet high. This was once a temple. The bricks in all these are of large size, and the cement used mud; but in the last, along with the large bricks, small ones also are now found, and remains of lime and mortar: the positions of the smaller bricks, however, are such as clearly to show that they did not enter into the construction of the original temple. A few misshapen stones and fragments now occupy the summit of the mound, and are devoutly worshipped by libations of milk and offerings by the Muhammadans of the adjacent village Bihta. (This is not the Bihta on the East Indian Railway which General Cunningham commissioned me to examine, as stated in his Report, Vol. III, but quite another village about 25 miles south of it.)

Tradition ascribes these mounds and others too numerous to detail (all, however, close about this spot) to a Muhammadan saint named Makhdun Sâh; and, absurd as it may appear, the mounds at Bihta and Bhagwânganj are both said to be his tombs or dargâhs, while all the other mounds are his asthâns.

I should have excavated the mound at Bhagwânganj but for the circumnstance that the people would not hear of the mound of the dargâh of their saint being dug into, and although I noticed and pointed out holes in the sides of the main mound where bricks bad been dug and carried away, it did not in any way make the people more favourable to my designs, and I was forced to he content with noticing the exterior so far as I could, and the portions of interior disclosed by the holes already dug in the sides.

Nothing could be more complete and convincing than the