742 Notes on the Antiquities of lihopal. [Aug. 



40 feet high. The entrance is on the western side, and you ascend to 

 the door lintel and then descend into the temple. The passages be- 

 tween the massive pillars and the external walls are necessarily narrow, 

 and the pillars themselves are inelegant in their proportions. The 

 space between them is wholly occupied with the " Lingam," which, with 

 its pedestal, forms a gigantic object nearly 25 feet high, and is an 

 existing illustration of a passage in Wilson's Hindoo Theatre, to the 

 effect, if my memory serves me right, that the "Saivas" had a god so 

 big they were obliged first to build him and then his containing temple. 



The Lingam with its sustaining altar or pedestal, has an elegant and 

 imposing appearance. The Lingam proper is a cylinder, with a slight- 

 ly rounded top, of 7 feet and 2 inches in height by 5 feet 3 inches 

 in diameter. It rests upon a single block 19£ feet square by 3^ feet in 

 thickness, the upper surface having a channel parallel to the four edges, 

 to carry off the water of oblations. The " die" or body of the pedestal 

 or altar is about seven feet square in section, but the accompanying 

 elevation, drawn partly from memory, will give you a truer idea of the 

 whole work than any description, although it cannot be quite accurate 

 in details, and the proportions are certainly not so perfect in the draw- 

 ing as I conceive them to be in the original. The pedestals of many 

 Lingams are indeed almost faultless in their proportions and in the 

 beauty of their ornaments, and at Bhojpoor greatness of dimension is 

 added to perfection of form. 



The temple was never completed, and partially hewn stones, or 

 blocks rough as they were quarried, are still lying on the summit of 

 the sandstone hill within three hundred yards of the building. One of 

 these blocks is the half wrought " Kullus" or keystone of the dome, 

 which measures eleven feet square by five feet in thickness. A ramp 

 of earth and rubbish abutting against the eastern side of the temple 

 still remains, to show the simple and efficient, if not very ingenious 

 means, used for raising heavy blocks to the summits of buildings. 



No formal inscription has been found, and as the temple was never 

 finished it is probable that none was ever recorded. The inscription in 

 five lines, now sent, is cut on the jamb of the doorway, and is probably 

 the work of some pilgrim. The characters, although rudely executed 

 and somewhat different in form from those now in use, are still legible, 

 but the language is not understood by any Pundit in this quarter. You 



