1903.] Annual Address. 23 



read at some future meeting a paper on the work of conservation of 

 monuments done at Gaur and Pandua in the district of Malda during his 

 administration. It is due to his memory in this Society that I should, on this 

 occasion, however briefly, place before you some account of that work. 



The ruins of Gaur have for more than a hundred years attracted 

 the notice of Englishmen, and we have early descriptions of them, 

 besides that, accompanied by photographic illustrations, which is so well 

 kuown to us as the work of Mr. Ravenshaw, edited and published by his 

 widow in 1878. No systematic restoration and preservation of the most 

 striking and beautiful among them appears, however, to have been un- 

 dertaken until the present day. On the contrary, the work of destruc- 

 tion, begun in early years, was apparently allowed to continue in our 

 time. Mr. Ravenshaw remarks that there is not a village, scarce a house, 

 in the district or the surrounding country which does not bear evidence 

 of having been constructed from these ruins, materials from them having 

 been carried even as far as the cities of Murshidabad, Rajmahal, and 

 Rangpur; and a footnote of his book brings to notice the strange, but 

 melancholy, fact that in the early days of our revenue administration 

 the right to dismantle Gaur of the beautiful enamelled bricks which 

 adorned its buildings was farmed out to the landholders of the district ! 

 The capital of the Hindu Kings of Bengal, Gaur, passed, by conquest, 

 into the hands of the Muhammadan rulers of the Province in 1198, and 

 it was during their occupation that it attained its enormous dimensions 

 and its magnificence, until its sack by Slier Shah in 1537, followed by its 

 depopulation by a virulent epidemic of plague in 1575, led to its abandon- 

 ment. During the centuries which have since passed the climate and 

 the spoliation to which I have referred have necessarily left of the 

 city but a number of scattered ruins, many in hopeless dilapidation, 

 but some fortunately retaining enough of their structure and beauty to 

 merit and reward careful preservation. Among these are the large 

 Golden Mosque, the Dakhil Gate, the Qadam Rasul Mosque, the Minar, 

 the Tantipara Mosque and the Lattan Mosque, on all of which work 

 has been done by the Bengal Government. The Golden Mosque, or 

 Baradarwaji, commenced by Husain Shah and completed by his son 

 Nasrat Shah between 1521 and 1532 A.D., was perhaps the finest 

 of the Gaur mosques. The principal portion now left is a corridor, 

 having arched openings at each end and eleven graceful arches on 

 each side, surmounted by domes, the whole being faced with large 

 blocks of black hornblende, and the total length being 180 feet by 

 80 feet. The arches and the crowns of the domes have been re- 

 paired, the fallen domes have been restored and facing stones have 

 been put in part of the walls. The stones in a tower at the northern 



