1847.] Notice on the Antiquities of Bhopal, 759 



its gates or entrances, now represented by two solitary jambs with broad 

 lintels, are within a dozen yards of the back of the temple itself. 

 There are Arabic inscriptions over these gates, to the effect that the 

 mosque was built in the year of the Hijree 739 (1338-39 A. D.) and 

 in the reign of Abool Moojahid Mahomed Ibn Toghluk Shah. Ano- 

 ther mosque, one of some pretensions, was afterwards erected in the 

 vicinity of the temple. It was finished in 1041 Hijree (1631-32), as 

 the inscription says, "at Oodehpoor on the borders of Gondwana." 



The temple at Oodehpoor is perhaps as elegant a specimen of old 

 Hindoo architecture as is now to be found to the north of the Ner- 

 budda, always excepting the Qootub Minar at Delhi. It yields indeed 

 in size to the temple built at Bindrabun by Man Singh of Jeypoor, 

 which was defaced by Aurungzeb, but it surpasses it in the proportions 

 of its design and in the elaborateness of its details. It is a monu- 

 ment moreover of the varying fortunes of brahminism. It was most 

 likely erected when the " twice-born" had fairly triumphed over the 

 Buddhists. Within three hundred years it was despoiled by the Maho- 

 metans. In two hundred years more the victories of Rana Sanka 

 allowed votaries once again to flock to it, but the rise of the Moghuls 

 soon consigned it a second time to the neglect of the rich. The Mo- 

 ghuls fell, and a dynasty of brahmins from the south mastered the 

 country, and showed at once their gratitude and the grossness of their 

 apprehensions, by capping the simple black stone of Muhadeo with an 

 idolatrous brazen head. This last bequest to the temple is dated in 

 1841 sumbut (1784 A. D.), and in two generations from that time the 

 new masters from the west, while admiring the beauties of the fabric 

 can trace the corruption which beset brahminism in the hour of its 

 success. Fetichism had been sublimed into a symbolic yet philosophic 

 Deism, but in the eleventh century priestcraft fully appreciated the ad- 

 vantage of mystery, the blackstone is no longer conspicuous in the open 

 air or in the centre of a lofty edifice, it is concealed in an " adytum," a 

 " holy of holies," and the trembling devotee reaches it through a gloomy 

 passage, and can at last only see it by the partial and flickering light of 

 an oil-fed taper. 



Oodehpoor has its fane attributed to Jains or Buddhists, as well as 

 its temples, certainly Brahmin and Moslem. The Beeja [or Vijaya] 

 mundur is two-storied and about 40 feet long by 20 or 22 feet wide, 



