824 Observations upon the past and present [Oct. 



various lands, project in bold relief from the sikras, such as tigers 

 which face the cardinal points, and vairagis, as large as life, which 

 sit performing tapasya, on the top of the body of the mandirs, one at 

 each corner of the front (or east) face. The temple to the right 

 is to Rama Chandra, under whose porch reposes a marble Seshsai, his 

 couch, as the name indicates, the circling wreaths of a snake. The 

 left temple is a Jandrddan, the reliever of distress. 



Jan&tiffn duJcham arddate-iti jan&rddana. 



A black Garuda, squatted on the Ndg, occupies the porch. In 

 front two small katris like sentry boxes shelter the one, a Goverdhana, 

 in white, the other, a Keshorai, in black, marble : " the beautiful- 

 haired," is surrounded by dancing figure. Two other forms of 

 Vishnu sanctify Ank-pdt a Viswarupa, and a Sankudhara whose silly 

 story may be read in the Bhagawatat. These seven images* are all 

 carved with much skill, and boast of great antiquity, though the 

 temples which cover them are modern. 



These modern temples seem not to have been erected by one person 

 only, for though Hunter ascribes them to Rung Rao AppAHfthe peo- 

 ple of the place named the first Mulhar Rao as the founder. Perhaps 

 Mulhar Rao made the smaller mandirs, and has got credit for the 

 whole, by the judicious appropriation of a small fund, to the support 

 of poor brahmans, ten of whom are daily fed at Ank-pdt in his name. 

 Some told me that Ahalya Bai' founded the charity, but this belief 

 may have obtained from her name being more generally known. 



A mound of earth separates Damodar from the Vishnu Sdgar, a 

 piece of water white with the favorite flower of the gods, the lotus. 

 A little beyond is the Gumti kund, whose banks are lined with 

 various buildings to Mahadeo, Dharmsdlas, chabutras, &c. and whose 

 waters communicate with the river of which it bears the name. 

 Sandipan, the tutor of Krishna, had made a vow to bathe once in 

 24 hours in the Gumti, but as travelling every day to the river and 

 back again would have left him little leisure for the instruction of his 

 pupils, the young god proposed bringing the river to Oujein, and he 

 satisfied the pious scepticism of the domine, by desiring him to write 

 on a piece of paper and to throw it into the Gumti : in a few hours the 



* The Avanti khand mentions ten Vishnus. Of the other three, there is a 

 Parsattam near the Sola Sagur, a brahman, the discomfiter of Bali, whose story 

 j s so well told by Southey, and a Baldeo at the Gumti-kund 



f The Dewan of the Puar,— -the compiler of the Modern Traveller seems to 

 mistake him for the raja. 



