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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
slain the bull Arishta.
[May 3, 1872.
To avert the conse
six months. 15, B il chha, 16, Bach h-h a n,
quences of so ill-omined a deed, all the sacred streams and places of pilgrimage, obedient to the summons of the god, assembled in bodily
and 17, Adib a dri are obscure places on the
form at the foot of the Giri-raj and poured from
their holy urns into two deep basins, excavated for the purpose, now known as Krishan-kund and Rādhā-kund.
There Krishna bathed, and—
by the efficacy of such concentrated essence of sanctity, was washed clean of the pollution he had incurred.
And still, at midnight on the
8th day of the dark fortnight of the month Kārtik, the same spirits renew their visit to the auspicious spot; and every devout Hindu who then plunges beneath the wave acquires by the single act as much merit as if he had laboriously made a separate pilgrimage to each of the shrines there represented. The town which has arisen on the margin of these two famous lakes is of considerable extent, and is crowded with religi
ous edifices, the pions foundations of princes and pilgrims from the most remote parts of India. One temple in particular may be mentioned as
erected by the Rājā of Manipur from the far east of Bengal. The two lakes are only parted by a broad stone terrace, and are both supplied on all four sides with long unbroken flights of steps of the same material. Ordinarily the water is so abundant that it washes nearly the highest tier, being the whole drainage of the adjoining ghaná, or woodland, a tract of very considerable extent; and the charm of the broad and brimming basin is much enhanced by the unusual care that is taken to preserve it from all pollution. Till the beginning of this
century the two reservoirs were simply as nature had designed them ; the present stone Ghâts were completed in the year 1817 at the sole cost of the Lālā Bābū, whom we have before had occasion to mention.
The whole quarter of the
town most immediately adjoining is exclu sively occupied by a colony of Bengalis. The 13th on the list of upabans is G and harv
ban, of which the precise locality is uncertain. 14, Par soli, near Go bard h a n, is styled on the maps and in the Revenue Roll, Mahmūd pur, a name barely recognized at all on the spot. On its borders is the Ch and r as a row ar, a
fine octagonal sheet of water with stone ghâts, the work of Rājā Nahr Siâh of Bharatpur. Here Brahma, joining with the Gopis in the mystic dance, was so enraptured with delight, that all unconscious of the fleeting hours he al
lowed the single night to extend over a period of
Bharatpur border. 18, K a r a hla, or Kar he la in the Chhātā Pargana, has been already mentioned for its magnificent Kadamb-Khanqi. 19, Aj no k h or Ajn o k h a ri, derives its name from the Anjan-pokhar, but is now often corrupted, both in writing and pronunciation, into the unmeaning form Ajnot. 20, Pisáyo, 21, Kokil a-b an in Great Bathan, and 22, D ad hi
g a n w or D a h-g a n w have already been in cidentally mentioned. 23, Kot-b a n, beyond the town of Kosi, is the most northern point in the modern perambulation, and from the name would appear always to have been so ; the ex treme limit of a series of holy places being ordi marily designated Koti. Thus the city of Ma th ur à has twenty-four tirthas along the bank of the Jamunā, the highest up the stream called
Utt h a r-ko ti, the lowest simply Ko t i ti rath. 24. Rá val, (for rājā-kula) Rādhā's reputed birth-place, according to a half obsolete legend, is a small village in the Mahāban Par gana, with a temple of Larliji, the sanctity of which has been entirely eclipsed by the greater pretensions of its more modern rival at Barsāna. In the Váráha Purdina, or rather in the inter
polated section known as the Máthurá Māhātmya, the Mathurā-Mandal is described as 20 yojanas in extent.
Winsati yojanānāmcha Máthuram mama man Qalam
Yatra yatra narah snåto muchyate sarva-pâta kaih.
And taking the yojana as 7 miles, and the kos as 13 miles, 20 yojanas would be nearly equal to 84 kos, the popular estimate of the distance tra versed. In computing the length of the way, full al lowance must be made for the constantins and outs, turns and returns, which result in the ultimate perambulation of a comparatively circumscribed area. It is however sometimes said that the circle originally must have been of much wider extent, since the city of M at hur à, which is described as its centre, is some 30 miles distant
from the most northern point Kot-b a n, and only 6 from T âr si to the south. Elliot more over quotes in his Glossary the following cou plet as fixing the limits of the Braj-m and a 1:
‘It Bar-hadd, ut Sona-hadd, ut Sūrasen kā gååw,
Braj chaurási koš meſ. Mathură mandalmääh.” According to this authority, the original area has been diminished by more than a half; for
