228 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XIII. 



This is an inscription of 7 lines, covering a space of 8"x 11", 

 incised on the right jamb of a gateway leading to the house of 

 the Vaghora jagirdar of the place. The gateway is in red 

 sand-stone. The inscription is surmounted by the print of a 

 female's hand carved in the stone and records that in the year 

 Samvat 1762, the ninth day of the dark fortnight of Jetha, Sunday. 

 Vaghora Indra Bhana went to heaven and his wife, the Sakhall 

 Amrita De, became sati after him. It will be noticed that these 

 names are the same as those mentioned in the inscription near 

 the second well, which is dated Samvat 1756 (see above). 



1. II *^pNrT5 W I 



* 



APPENDIX. 



Commemorative songs of the early kulf.rs of Bikanee 



It is no exaggeration to say that the old poetry by the 

 bards of the Rajputs must be given a very prominent place 

 ongst the sources of information for the mediaeval history 



among 



of Rajputana 



come into touch with the mod. n bards and has "heard or read 



anything of their composition-. In fact, generally shaking. 

 there is probably no bardic literatim in any part of the world 



m which truth is so masked by fiction or >o disfigured bj 

 hyperboles, as in the bardic literature of Rajputana. In the 



magniloquent strains of a Carana, everything takes a gigantic 

 form, as if he was seeing the world through a magnifying gk* 8 

 every skirmish become- a Mahabharata, every little hamlet » 

 Lanka, every warrior a giant who with hi arm^ upholds the 

 sky. But. if one allows for th< exaggerations, and reduces 

 things to their natural size, and at the same time denudes the 

 tacts of all the fiction with which thev arc coated, the kernel 

 ot truth can still be seen lurking inside.' 



1 here is, of course, a distinction to be made between 

 poems and poems. It is obvious that to have a re d historical 

 value* a poem must be genuine, i.e. must be conteiiiporar} 



