Report of a Tour through the Bengal Provinces/Indappe

by Joseph David Freedone Melik Beglar

INDAPPE.

The exploration of the old fort of Indappe, pronounced Indpa by the people, was also entrusted to me. Owing to active opposition from the Rájá's people, I was unable to do more than complete a survey of the locality, and the result may be seen in the plate; but I can confidently say that a careful and thorough examination of the mounds, and especially of the great tope here, will prove a great acquisition to our present meagre knowledge of ancient Indian structures. The tope, judging from its dimensions, 125 feet in diameter at base by 35 feet in height, must be very old; for, although the base now is necessarily broader from the accumulation of debris than it was, yet, on examining the dimensions of the mound at a height of 20 feet above the ground, we find it to have been 65 feet in diameter at that height. When I examined the tope, it was almost entire, as the lowest portion of the socket hole for the umbrella existed then; so that the tope which I found 35 feet high could not have been much higher at any time—38 feet, perhaps, is as much as it ever could have been without the umbrella. Assuming this to have been its height (and for the purpose of ascertaining its form in view of its age it is safer to err on the side of excess of height, and consequently lateness of age), we find that at a depth of 18 feet from the crown it had a diameter of 65 feet. From these data, and remembering that the round portion of topes was usually a hemisphere, we find the radius of the hemisphere to have been about 37 feet, so that this tope was probably a plain hemisphere on a very low platform, and therefore must have been built at a very early period.