I860.] Description of the Chandrarckltagurh. 185 



that it is a forced entrance. There is not a vestige of anything that 

 could have heen a stone staircase. The interior of these three rooms is 

 filled in a good deal with rubbish, shewing, I fancy, that there was a 

 roof on them once. 



The villagers all say that it has been a puzzle to them for genera- 

 tions why the Rajah Chandraketu, to whom the building of the fort 

 was assigned, should have built his house so. They said, truly enough, 

 that any force that could take the fort, would soon find its way into 

 the house. 



Rajah Chandraketu lived, say the rustics, in the Satya Yug, and 

 was a favoured contemporary of Rama, who on his march to Lanka 

 stopped here, and found the Raja engaged in pious worship, morning, 

 noon and night. Before he touched food, he used to perform poojah 

 to one thousand Sivas (Lings). Rama halted at a place called Tapoban, 

 now of considerable local celebrity as a spot for worship, and in a 

 dream authorized Chandraketu to build a mandir to Siva and place 

 in it a Ling having a thousand Murts — that by worshipping it he 

 might, as a special privilege, obtain all the merit of one thousand acts 

 of worship. I went to visit the Sahasra Ling, or rather I had gone 

 there before, and had noticed that it was encircled with ten rows 

 of marks like a continuous m mmmm. The old Burwei of the 

 village told me, and I found, there were exactly 1,000 of these 

 strokes, and on enquiry I was told the story of Chandraketu. The 

 temple is old certainly, but my belief is that neither the fort nor the 

 temple are more than two or three hundred years old. Perhaps the 

 accompanying sketch of the mandir (vide plate XXL) may determine 

 the age of that building at least. It is split by roots and is in a very 

 tottering state altogether. Several of the stones have come down from 

 their places. 



Of the family or history of Chandraketu not another word could 

 be learnt. Nothing but the fort and the house have survived him, and 

 judging by them, he must have been a man of simple habits and of 

 rare singleness of purpose and tenacity. Why he should have de- 

 fended the eastern side of his fort at such double expense I do not 

 know. But it was a costly undertaking. 



There is no mention of the fort in Bayley's MS. Notes of the 

 Zillah. 



