Archeological Survey Report. XXiX 
goat ; and at the time of my visit, the ground was still wet with the 
blood of a recently killed goat. 
71. The remains at Baragaon consist of numerous masses of brick 
ruins, amongst which the most conspicuous is a row of lofty conical 
mounds running north and south. These high mounds are the 
remains of gigantic temples attached to the famous monastery of 
Nalanda. The great monastery itself can be readily traced by the 
square patches of cultivation, amongst a long mass of brick ruins, 
1,600 feet by 400 feet. These open spaces show the positions of the 
court-yards of the six smaller monasteries which are described by 
Hwen Thsang as being situated within one enclosure forming alto- 
gether eight courts. Five of the six monasteries were built by five 
consecutive princes of the same family, and the sixth by their 
successor, who is called King of Central India. No dates are given ; 
but from the total silence of Fa-Hian regarding any of the magnificent 
buildings at Nalanda, which are so minutely described by Hwen 
Thsang, I infer that they must have been built after A. D. 415. 
Fa-Hian simply states that he came to the hamlet of Nalo, “where 
and this is all that he says of Nalanda. But 
surely if the lofty temple of King Baladitya, which was 300 feet in 
height, had then existed, it seems scarcely possible that he should 
Sariputra was born,” 
not have noticed it. I would therefore assign the probable date of 
the temples and monasteries of Nalanda to the two centuries between 
the visits of Fa-Hian and Hwen Thsang, or from A. D. 425 to 625. 
This date is further borne out by the fact recorded by Hwen Thsang 
that the great temple of Baladitya was similar to that near the sacred 
Pipal tree and Buddha Gaya, Now as similarity of style may gener- 
ally be taken as denoting proximity of date, the erection of Baladitya’s 
temple at Nalanda may, with great probability, be assigned to the 
same century in which the Buddha Gaya temple was built. As I 
have already shown this to be about A. D. 500, the date of the 
Nalanda temple will lie between A. D. 450 and 550. 
72. Several inscribed stones lie scattered over the ruins of Bala- 
ditya’s monastery. The letters are only mason’s marks, but their 
forms are those of the 6th and 7th centuries. 
73. As it is an object of much importance in early Indian history 
to fix even a single date with something like precision, I may add 
that Hwen Thsang makes Baladitya a contemporary of Mihirakula of — 
