778 Account of an Inscription from Bar eilly. [Sept» 



" The inscription which Colonel Stacy has sent you was taken in 

 1829 or 1830 from a stone dug up near a village called Illahabas, about 

 15 miles N. E. from Beesulpo&r (Visalapur) in the Bareilly district. It 

 was found with some images in the year 1826 or 1827, in land forming a 

 ridge (about from 15 to 30 feet elevation) above the level of the plain. 

 The ridge commences from the hills N. and E. of Pillibheet, runs down 

 the eastern border of the Bareilly district, and is continued 1 believe to 

 near the banks of the Sardah or Gogra river, in the Shdhjehdnpur dis- 

 trict This ridge is covered with forest and brushwood, and extends 

 eastward perhaps to near the Sardah. This tract is 1 believe nearly if 

 not quite uninhabited j want of water is I think the cause. All about the 

 part where the stone was found there are remnants of large bricks, 

 of the kind found by Captain Cautley at Behat on the canal in the 

 Sehdranpiir district. I do not recollect any ruins, either of an old or 

 more modern description at all near the place. Illahabas and the 

 other villages for miles are mostly ' nowabad' or new settled villages ; 

 they are all in the lowland, beneath the ridge. Beesulpoor itself is a town 

 of modern date, still mostly chopper and mud. The images were set 

 up by some brahmins in a temple built for the purpose at Illahabas, 

 and being novelties for some time attracted considerable offerings : 

 about 2,000 rupees were the produce of one year. This occasioned a 

 claim in the shape of a boundary dispute touching the land on which 

 the temple was built. I had to settle it, and then had the copy of the 

 inscription taken : no one there could read it. The stone from which 

 it was taken was either built in over the doorway of the temple, or was 

 standing by the door ; I do not recollect which. Of the images I either 

 took no notice or do not now remember any thing. The copy of the 

 inscription was laid by and forgotten, till Colonel Stacy talking 

 about inscriptions I looked out for it and gave it him. The people about 

 the place said that there had been in former times a large city or town 

 there. The bricks, &c. might have created the tradition. The forest now 

 covers the place. There are no remains of ruins new or old from 

 which the stone could have been taken throughout the pergunnah for 

 miles round. The soil of the ridge and that of the land below it are 

 remarkably distinct." 



Colonel Stacy's pandit has furnished a modern version of the in- 

 scription, but, on comparing it, so many deviations were found that I 

 preferred going through the whole with Kamala'ka'nta pandit, and 

 I may safely say that the transcript now given is hardly doubtful in a 

 single letter ; it is no small compliment to Mr. Boulderson's transcriber 

 that in but one place is a letter omitted, and in one only a letter in 

 excess added. 



