Report of a Tour through the Bengal Provinces/Ner and Belá
Ner is a small village to the west of the road from Jahânâbâd to Gaya, and about a mile from the Jamna river. Here is a large pillared hall, evidently the maha mandapa of a temple. In the centre of one end of this hall, which has a wall running partly round it, is a doorway with a lingam sculptured over the entrance, giving access to a small chamber (the sanctum of the temple) with a lingam in its centre; the walls of this chamber, as, indeed, all the walls, appear to have been of brick picked with stone.
There is nothing of special interest here; the pillars are roughly dressed, and are not elegant, either for proportion or sculpture, of which, indeed, there is no trace; the hall is roofed by flat slabs of stone. The place was, I believe, visited by Mr. Peppe and a photograph secured.
Near Belá are several remains, about a mile and a half east of the dâk bungalow; these consist of various statues, mostly Brahmnanical, but some Buddhist also; and of a lingam and argha, which are fabled to have resisted all attempts at dislodgment for conveyance elsewhere. A fragment of a halo round the head of a Buddha with the beginning of the Buddhist creed was found by me in one of the recently set up earthen lingams. In the vicinity are other temples, none of any antiquity, and containing nothing of interest. One temple contains a statue of the skeleton goddess Kâli in black stone.