Captain Tod's Comments on a Sanscrit Inscriptmi. 139 



symbols. The superior wealth of the ministers of the Balhara sove- 

 reigns (in whose territory A'bd was a tributary fief), following the Jain 

 doctrines, has eclipsed, in the splendour of the temples to Rishabhadeva, the 

 simplicity of the shrine of Father Adam, as Mahddeva is often termed in 

 these countries. He is here also worshipped as Patdlesivara, or Lord of 

 the Infernal Regions. There are no temples in India, which can for a 

 moment compete with these, whether in costliness of materials, or in beauty 

 of design. 



The Chuhdn genealogist has chosen a most celebrated spot for his birth, 

 and has invested it with all the interest of a classical originality. He was, 

 with the three others, created for the express purpose of defending the 

 religion of Brahma, when the Daityas rebelled and threw down the altars 

 and statues of Mahddeva, and defiled the pit of sacrifice. This evidently 

 alludes to a period when probably these two grand sects were contending 

 for superiority : but unluckily we shall never learn who these Daityas were, 

 or who the tribes, evidently only spiritually born again for the purpose of 

 fighting the battles of the Braliminical sect. I placed myself on the top of 

 the Guru-sikhar, or saint's pinnacle, the highest of all tlie numerous peaks 

 of this curious mountain, "where European foot had never been;" and 

 but one gentleman besides myself had ever been on any part oi' A'hu. Here 

 I had the pleasure, among other discoveries, to meet with some of the fruits 

 of Europe, the nectarine, peach, and citron, indigenous on the mountain, 

 upon the edge of the Indian desert, and on the very verge of the tropical 

 zone. It was a place of wonders, independent of its temples ; which, how- 

 ever fine and costly the fabric, were surpassed, in my ideas, as a lover of 

 antiquity, by the gigantic temples of Girindr, constructed from the rock on 

 wiiicli they stand, and supported by numerous columns of the same dusky 

 granite and sienite. 



The height oi' A'hu may be judged by the variation of temperature. In 

 thirty-six hours I passed from that of 108" in the plains of Marwdr, to 

 60" on the summit of A'bu, under a vertical sun. The barometer indicated 

 a height of near five thousand feet above tlie sea. 



Sucli is the first acknowledged seat of Cholidn power ; and the Deara 

 tribe, a branch of it, whose capital, Sarowi, lies about eighteen miles north, 

 has held the sovereignty of J' Z/M for about five hundred years. The Chd- 

 hamdna possessions extended, at very early periods (and when Mahm6d 

 visited India), on both sides of that stupendous chain of mountains, the 



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