Report of a Tour through the Bengal Provinces/Burám

by Joseph David Freedone Melik Beglar

BURÁM.

Twelve miles west by a little north from Puralya, on the right bank of the Kasai or Kansai river, is the small village and the ruins of Burám. The ruins are on a knoll at the edge of the river; approaching them after crossing the river from the north, the first ruin is a low mound; on this lies a round-ended flat slab with inscribed; the characters may belong to the ninth or tenth century; the mound is evidently the site of a temple of brick, faced with stone; there are a few other low small mounds of no special interest.

Of the remains that still stand more or less dilapidated, the first, beginning from the south end, is a large flat-topped temple of brick; it faces east, and stands on a mound 11 or 12 feet high, which evidently formed the basement on which the temple stood; the bricks are 18" × 12" × 2⁴⁄₅ inches and 9" × 12" × 2⁴⁄₅ inches, set close without mortar, but with mud cement; a section and other measurements, &c., are given in plate.

The ornamentation, externally, consists of tiers and rows of niches cut on the face and sides and back walls of the tower. As at Buddha Gáyá, there is not, and does not appear to have been, any plaster coating to the temple, as the bricks are all carefully cut and smoothed; the temple faces east; the entrance is of the usual pattern, a rectangle, surmounted by a tall triangular opening of overlapping courses of bricks; the temple consists, and appears to have always consisted, of no more than a single cell, 11 feet 8 inches square; there is consequently no division of the entrance opening into a door proper and an illuminating window; the figure within is a four-armed female seated on a lion, which, therefore, I assume to represent Parvati.

Near this temple lie the ruins of a stone temple; this was built of stone cut carefully and set without mortar throughout; the stone used was a fine close-grained sandstone; the mouldings are plain, but not bold.

Close to it is the top lintel of an entrance, with a groove in its under-face, extending almost the whole length of the stone; the entrance to which it belonged must have been 3 feet 3 inches wide; there is space for a figure of the object of worship in the centre of the architrave, but the figure, if any existed, has long ago been rubbed away under the treatment of laborers sharpening their field implements; one of the side posts of the door or entrance is still standing close to the architrave, and apparently in its original position; on it is sculptured the fig. ६; behind, and to its west, lie the ruins of a large stone temple; this temple, therefore, also faced east, and consisted, like the one described, of a single cell, surmounted by a tower roof; the sculpture, or rather the mouldings of the temple, were, judging from the remains, shallow.

To the north of the first brick temple is a smaller one resembling it; the carving and mouldings are here more elaborate; the temple is now plastered and whitewashed, but I consider the plaster to be a later, and probably a very recent, addition; this inference I draw from the circumstance that the ornamentation executed in the plaster coat does not in all parts correspond to the ornamentation cut in the brick below; this last is plainer, but bolder, and therefore of an earlier age; there is, however, no lack of delicate and minute sculpture, although not so profuse or elaborate as in the plaster-coating: an instance of the discrepancy between the sculpture on the brick face and on the plaster coat is to be seen in a row of lotus, &c., flowers. In the brick the centre of the scroll work is a fine delicately executed eight-leaved lotus, while in the plaster coating the lotus is replaced by a tulip-shaped flower: in front of the remains of the sanctum stand the lower stumps of a number of pillars of plain pattern; these were evidently the supports of the roof of the mahamandapa, which once existed; but though a mahamandapa existed, it is clear, from the façade of the sanctum, that the temple as originally built consisted solely of the cell, the mahamandapa having been subsequently added; and this view is rendered almost certain by the circumstance, that the stumps of the pillars show that they were taken from other stone temples, of which several once existed, and which have left, as proofs of their existence, a number of mounds.

Near this, and to the north of the second ruined stone temple, and in line with it and with the first brick temple, is the ruin of another stone temple; the material and ornamentation are similar to those in the other temple; the cell exists entire and is 8½ feet square. So much of its entrance as still exists shows it to have been of the usual type of a rectangle, surmounted by a triangle, the diminution being effected by overlapping the courses of stones.

To the east of the second brick temple is a figure of Parvati, four-armed, with a small figrure of Ganeça to its right, and a female figure to its left; it is half-buried; in execution and style it resembles the sculptures at Dulmi, and I therefore ascribe it to the same age; it formed the object of worship in a small temple, which faced north, and of which the low mound in which the statue, if buried, is all that now remains.

To the east of this are the ruins of a small brick temple, which faced north (the other brick temples face east); there is in the ruins and still in situ a life-size sculpture of the eight-armed Durgâ slaying the Maheshâsur; this is the finest piece of sculpture in the place, and fully equals in every respect the similar sculpture at Dulmi, and is a close approach to the sculptures at Lakhisarai; it is in excellent preservation; its age I consider to be the same as of the Dulmi sculptures; it is in better preservation than the sister sculpture at Dulmi.

A few other mounds of no special interest exist; the last brick temple to the north-west of all others resembles them, but is plainer; it was plastered, and the ornamentation on the plaster is profuse and elaborate; the plaster, however, is clearly an after-addition; the temple was Saivic, as evidenced by a lingam and argha in the sanctum.

A few other mounds of no special interest exist.

A remarkable circumstance here is, that all the temples without exception, the object of which can now be ascertained, appear to have been Saivic; there is no Vaishnavic or other sculpture at all in the whole place; there must, therefore, have been a large and rich, and probably intolerant, Saivic establishment here.

Four miles south-east of this place, and some distance from the Kasái river, is the village of Ánsá Karandi, said to possess ruins of temples; I heard of them long after I had left the neighbourhood.