FEB. 2, 1872.]
MANDARA HILL.
49
serpent round its sides, so as to induce the be lief that the hill was used by the gods in churn ing the ocean. This, as well as the steps cut in
ku n d a to the Pá ph a r n i (which he calls Pou phur).f. The passage of the cascade may still be clearly traced a few yards from the steps the rock, must have cost enormous sums. But by the smooth surface, abrupt declivities, and an inscription at the side of the steps which deep gorges left by it on that portion of the hill has lately been deciphered" seems to show that where it fell. But at present the S it à ku m da, in they were the work of a Buddhist king named stead of overflowing, is scarcely full even during U grab hair ava. It is however probable that the rains. The pilgrims who visit it are persuaded the inscription does not refer to the steps cut in the rock, but, as supposed by the decipherer,t commemorates the dedication of a statue. Though there is at present no statue near the inscription, there are still to be seen many Buddhist and Hindu images lying here and there on the left side of the steps, which have evidently been transported from their original places and muti lated and disfigured by Muhammadan bigotry. There is also a Buddhist temple near the sum mit of the hill which is held in great veneration by people of the jaina. But even if the honour of cutting the steps in the rock really belongs to Ug r a b ha i r a va—as a Buddhist, he could not have traced the coil of the great ser– pent on the body of the hill in order to keep up the memory of a Hindu superstition. The steps do not go much higher than Sí tá kun d a. This is the name of a beautiful oblong tank, about 100 feet by 50, excavated in the body of the rock, nearly 500 feet above the sur
rounding plain. Every hot spring in India is known by the name of Sí ták und a, it being supposed that S it à bathed in it after passing through the fiery ordeal to which she was sub jected by her husband with a view to test her purity, and thereby imparted to its water the heat which she had imbibed in the flaming pile. But the water in the S it à k und a on the Mandara is almost as cold as ice.
Whether
there was formerly a hot spring, the heat of
which has become extinct, it is not easy to say. The M and a r a Mahātmya, an old Sanskrit work which gives an account of the hill from a religious point of view, describes several springs existing at the place which
appear to have been subsequently amalgamated and converted into a tank by R & ja Chol 4. That the S i t à k u n d a has undergone extensive changes within the memory of man is apparent from Col. Francklin's account of it. For when he visited the hill in 1814, there was a cascade or waterfall from the Sit #* Wide page 54, Tnote f. f It is just to state that at the time of deciphering, he was not
aware that the inscription occurred near the side of the steps.
to believe that it has derived its name from S it {
—who used to bathe in it during her stay in the hill with her husband when banished from Oudh.
On the northern bank of the S it 4 kund a, stood the temple of Mad h us tid a na, said to have been
built by Rájá Cholé, now entirely in ruins. The temple appears to have been pulled down, its stones hurled down the sides of the hill to the plain, and the image of Madh us ti d an a reduced to
dust by Muhammadan fanatics. But according to the Brähmans, K iſ lä p a hár could not destroy the image of Madh us tid ana, for it leaped into the S it 4 k und a on his approach, and cutting a subterranean passage, proceeded to the large tank at Kajr ili near Bh ágalpur, where it remain ed concealed for many years. At length Madhu stid an a appeared to a Punda in a dream and told him of the place of his concealment, whence it was accordingly conveyed back to the Man déra and located in a new temple at the foot of the hill. But the Zamindars of Subbalpur, by whose ancestors the new temple was built, affirm that the image of Madhusudana, after its plunge into the Sitakunda, went direct to P a ch it, and thence appeared to one of their ancestors in a dream, and that it was not till they had waited in vain upon the Rájá of that place for recovery of the image, that M ad h us tid a n a condes cended to appear in the tank at Kajrá li. . A few feet above the S it 4 kund a is another spring which is called Shankha Kun d a from a monster Shankha or oyster reposing beneath
its waters. The Shankha, to judge of its size by the impression left on the bank, where it was formerly kept, is about 3 feet by 1%. It is said to be the same identical Shankh a that is designated in the Mahābh ár at a as Panch a janya– whose sound used to fill the ranks of the enemy with dismay. The Shankha Kund a is believ ed to be very deep. It has been very irregularly excavated, not presenting the appearance of any symmetrical figure, but rather resembling the shape of the oyster which is preserved in it; and t Wide his Inquiry concerntng the Site of Ancient Palibothra. Part II.-As Francklin's work is now scarce, his account is appended in full.–Ed.
