666 Facsimiles of Ancient Inscriptions. [Aug. 



" May Sambhu protect the lords of the earth — he the half male and 

 half female — whose third eye is half fire, and half moon — upon whom the 

 envious Ganga' (abusing his preference for Pa'rbati'), mounted upon his 

 head — whose skin on half his body is as an elephant's, and beauteous on 

 the other — surrounded (as a necklace) with men's bones." 



Had it not been for the poetical metre in which this is written, the 

 ^R^T^*^* Sragdhara chhanda consisting of four charanas of twenty- 

 one syllables, thus : — 



- \J U U KJ KJ KJKJ V \J 



it would have been next to impossible to have made out even what has 

 been here restored. Perhaps a few other verses might be made out 

 in the same manner from the very faint traces of letters on the cloth, 

 but it would be a grievous waste of time. If Lieut. Sale will favor 

 me with another impression of the concluding lines taken with black 

 printer's ink, there will be no difficulty in reading that portion, which 

 is clear enough, and which probably contains the cream of the story, 

 the donor's name and the date. 



I extract Lieutenant Sale's account of the inscription from his 

 private letter of April last, hoping he will pardon the delay in its 

 notice. 



" The inscription was found at the entrance of the temple of 

 Mahddeo on the hill of Kalinjar ; cut on a black marble slab. Parts 

 of it are effaced and it has been difficult to get clear impressions of 

 the rest in consequence of some attempts made by individuals on 

 former occasions who have clumsily destroyed the letters. 



"The date of the inscription (on the authority of the local pandits ?) 

 appears to be only about 700 years back ; and it contains the name 

 of a certain raja Parmalik*. The following tradition of the 

 cause of Kalinjar being fortified was related to me by the resident 

 brahmans. 



"During the time of the Satyayuga, a raja named Krim Khote 

 who was afflicted with a cutaneous disorder, was led by his delight in 

 hunting to form a party to the adjacent hills. Being much fatigued 

 he bathed in a tank fed by a natural spring called the Budhi Budha, 

 situated at the top of the hill of Kalinjar. To hide from public view 

 the disgusting appearance his skin presented, he used to wear a dress 

 over his entire person made of the skin of the sambre deer. On 

 retiring to his private apartments he took off this covering, and was 



* This must undoubtedly be the Milleki raja of Kalinjar mentioned by the 

 Musalman historians as having been defeated by the Delhi monarch (Mahmud 

 bin Altamsh) in A. D. 1246.— See Useful Tables, p. 125.— J. P. 



