1839.] Notice of Inscriptions in Behar. 353 



The hill is about 300 feet high, composed of stratified masses of the 

 Hornstone. It is quite perpendicular to the east, and sloping down to 



c 



t 



the west at an angle of about 40° d ^^^^%^ 



Other hills are generally in the shape of cones, but this seems to have 

 been upheaved by a sudden force in the direction a b or of c d, 

 snapping the subjacent crust, without disturbing the contiguous plain 

 e. This perpendicular rock extends about a mile or more north and 

 south, and there is no other hill within twelve miles. The charac- 

 ter of the Behar Hills in general is very peculiar, being unlike that of 

 any other country I have visited. They rise up out of the level plain 

 in small conical isolated peaks from 200 to 300 feet high, apparently 

 unconnected with each other, or any range of mountains. They are 

 composed of a variety of rocks, coarse granite, hornstone, jasper, 

 hornblende, &c. all mixed together without order, and all appearing 

 to have undergone some degree of fusion. They suggest the idea 

 that they existed previous to the plain which surrounds them, for if 

 they had been forced up from below, the adjacent plain would have 

 been upheaved with them in some degree ; whereas it is as flat as possi- 

 ble up to their very base. It seems not improbable, therefore, that they 

 originally formed the summits of a range of mountains, the vallies of 

 which were subsequently filled up, forming the bed of some pre- 

 adamite ocean. But I have forgotten the inscriptions in this geologi- 

 cal speculation 



The inscriptions numbered 4, 5, 6, and 7, were taken from the 

 pedestals of statues of Boodha found at Baragaon, about seven miles 

 west from the town of Behar, which Buchanan conceives to have 

 been the residence of the Maga Rajas. Three or four high mounds 

 composed of ruins of some large brick buildings are all that remain to 

 attest its ancient grandeur. The Boodhist images lying about in all 

 directions are very numerous ; that of Bhyroo is of colossal dimensions, 

 and made of granite. 



Enclosed is a rough sketch* of a very remarkable tower about sixty 

 feet high, and as many in circumference, situated on the summit of a 

 hill 800 feet high, near Girick, about seven or eight miles from 

 Rajgeer (Rajgiri) the ancient capital of Jarasanda, an Asur, or 

 Assyrian, the contemporary of Chrishna, and who is supposed to have 

 reigned over the country of Magadha, or Madhyades, about 1200 years 

 before Christ. 



* See Plate. 



