Report of a Tour through the Bengal Provinces/Jaynagar
JAYNAGAR.
There are traces of a small tope on the northern range of hills at Jaynagar; it is on a small flat piece of rock at the eastern end of the range, and just below the peak. Close to it is said to be the treasury of Indradyumna sealed with a magic seal; the spot presents the appearance of plain, smooth rock, perhaps artificially smoothed; but there is no difficulty in the way of popular belief, which flies at once to the supernatural. It is said Indradyumna had a great warrior, whom he trusted greatly and raised to the highest posts; at last the man began to entertain the idea of asking his master's daughter in marriage; the king informed of this became very angry, but the man was too powerful to be easily subdued, so he contrived that a cavern should here be constructed, into which he removed all his treasure, and when all were secured, he invited the warrior to the place; the man unsuspectingly went in, when Indradyumna at once let fall the trap door and sealed it with a magic seal; but it was not long before he suffered for thus killing his best general; the Muhammadans came down on him, drove him from place to place—his last place of refuge, as pointed out, being a natural cavern on the top of the southern range, and he finally was obliged to fly to Katak.
Indradyumna had a queen, so beautiful and of such airy lightness, that she used to bathe seated on a lotus leaf in the tank. When the Muhammadans had not yet come, but were about to do so to attack her husband, one of the premonitory signs vouchsafed was, that the queen could no longer be supported by the lotus. Some say this was the result of Indradyumna's treacherous behaviour to his general; for, as his wife floated on the lotus by force of the good acts of herself and her husband, the commission of a crime by him was at once shewn by the lotus refusing any longer to support his wife.
An annual fair is held here at the Dasahra festival.
For further particulars, I refer to General Cunningham's Report, Vol. III.
Two new inscriptions (short lines) from the pedestals of statues were found—one on a Ganeça at Lakhisarai, the other on the fine female statue of Párvati at Rajjhâna.