Archeological Survey Report. xci 
XXIII.—Buirart. 
218. The large village of Bhitari is situated on the left bank of the 
Gdngi Nadi, nearly midway between Benares and Ghazipur, and five 
miles to the north north-east of Sacdpur. The Gangiriver, which sur- 
rounds the village on three sides, is crossed by an old stone bridge of 
early Muhammedan style. The original bridge consisted of only two 
small arches, to which two others have since been added at different 
times. Bhitari has once been a town of some consequence, and it is still 
a considerable village, with a great number of brick-houses. Both in 
speaking and in writing its name is usually coupled with that of another 
place in its vicinity, as Saidpur Bhitari. It is thus designated in the 
Ayin Akbari, but the name has been strangely misread by Gladwin as 
Syedpoor Nemedy (Vol. 2, page 202), a mistake that must be due to 
the faulty nature of the Persian character in which his original was 
written, as its alphabet is utterly unsuited for the correct record of 
proper names. 
219. The remains at Bhitari consist of several ruined brick 
mounds, an inscribed stone pillar, and a few pieces of sculpture. 
Some of the mounds appear to be mere heaps of broken stone and 
brick, the gatherings from the fields after each season’s ploughing. 
The larger mounds, which run parallel to each other from the bridge 
towards the village, seem to me to be only the ruins of houses that 
once formed the two sides of a street. The remaining mounds, which 
are of square form and isolated, are at present covered with Musalman 
tombs ; but I have little doubt that all of them were originally either 
temples or other Hindu buildings. That one of these mounds be- 
longed originally to the Hindus, we have an undoubted proof in the 
existence of the inscribed stone pillar, which stands partially buried 
in the rubbish of its eastern slope, and in the discovery at the foot of 
the pillar of an old brick inscribed with the name of Srt Kumdra 
Gupta. The early occupation of the place by the Hindus is further 
proved by the discovery of several Hindu statues and lingams in the 
rubbish above the mounds, and by the finding of numerous bricks 
inscribed with Kwmdra Gupta’s name in the fields. I obtained further 
proof of the same by the purchase on the spot of three Indo Sassanian 
coins of base silver, which probably date the 8th or 9th century, and 
of one small round copper coin with an elephant on the obverse, and 
a peculiar symbol, supposed to be a Chaitya, on the reverse, which 
N 2 
