184 i.] the Kumaon and Rohilcund Turaee. 889 



fidently assumed as a matter of fact. The whole race* appear to have 

 become utterly extinct, but, at what time and in what manner, no one 

 can tell, and in fact their whole history is lost in the greatest obscurity. 

 Within the present provinces of Kumaon and Ghurwal, Josheemuth 

 near Budrinath, and Kuttoor not far to the North of Almorah in the 

 now almost desolate valley of Byjnat, are celebrated as the principal 

 seats of their power. The ruins still existing in the latter place, and 

 at Dwara Hath, some miles to the westward, are pointed out as relics 

 of the Kuttoor Raj, as are also the low carved stone pillars called 

 Brih- Kumbh,\ placed at intervals of a few miles, so frequent in the 

 eastern parts of the district, and which are said to have marked the 

 halts or encampments in the royal progresses. Some of these ruins, 

 especially the chubootras and wells, are not without beauty, at least 

 in their carving, and the great number of small temples even now 

 standing, each as it were dedicated to a separate idol, and the quantity 

 of idol images themselves, which have been found in their precincts, 

 shew that the Kuttoora Rajas were devout worshippers of the whole 

 Hindoo Pantheon. The shape of the buildings, and the character 

 of the sculptures, are said to be similar to the architectural features 

 observed in the South of India, but, I believe, that the same forms 

 are quite common in Bundlecund and on the banks of the Nurbudda. 

 From the account above given, it will at once be seen, that the dy- 

 nasty of which we are speaking, was of lowland origin, and that 

 no signs of an aboriginal extraction are visible in its remains. As, 

 before the Mahomedan conquest of India, the rulers of a region so 

 illustrious in the Shastras as the Himalaya mountains, being also 

 by their position masters of the sacred rites at the various sources 

 of the Ganges, may be supposed to have held rank equal with, if not 

 superior to, the Rajahs of Kuttair, or country between the mountains 

 and the Ganges now called Rohilcund ; and, as after the establish- 

 ment of the Mahomedan empire in Hindostan, the Kumaon Rajahs 

 were found in hereditary possession of the Turaee by a tenure quite 

 independent of any grant from lowland potentates, I see no reason- 



* At least that tribe of the Kuthoora Suruj-lmnsees which reigned in Kumaon, 

 t This is Bhdhha for Brihstumbh. crTf^fTar 



