1853.] .Notes on tlie Ruins at 3£ahdhdUpuram. 665 



to be assigned to the former ; but it should not be forgotten, that 

 these brick pagodas were in their own possession, and in present 

 use ; so that they had a motive for assigning to them a fabulous 

 degree of antiquity : while they had no such inducement for making 

 an untrue distinction between the caves and the other remains, all 

 equally abandoned and valueless to themselves. 



But whatever the age either actual or relative of the various tem- 

 ples of Mahabalipoor, it seems certain, that at some distant period, 

 the place was one of no small importance. The ground immediately 

 inland from the shore temple has obviously been built over, to a 

 considerable extent. The extremely well cemented foundations of 

 ancient walls are now dug out, as required for building materials, 

 by the inhabitants of the neighbouring village ; or for the improve- 

 ment of the brick pagoda. I examined a large mass of concrete, 

 with bricks on the lower surface, and found it extremely solid, and 

 in excellent preservation. It consisted of sharp broken fragments 

 of the granite of the place, mixed with unburned shells : the excel- 

 lent mortar in which they were embedded being probably these 

 same sea shells burned. The bricks were of the large size usual in 

 all old Hindu structures : but not uniform in their shape. Those I 

 measured varied from eleven to thirteen inches in length, from seven 

 to seven and half in breadth and were pretty regularly two inches* 

 thick ; so well laid in the finest mortar, that five of them in situ barely 

 measured eleven inches. Most of the houses in the village are built 

 of these old bricks ; but the ruins are so completely covered with a 

 deposit of soil, and drift sand, that numerous excavations would be 

 necessary, to afford even the vaguest idea of their extent. It is 



* I append a memorandum of the dimensions of old bricks I have collected 

 within the limits of the Mahabharut, and an average of a much larger number of 

 Paneeput fort, 15 inch long 9 inch wide 2\ thick, ""J specimens from the neigh- 

 Burnawa ditto, 17 n 9 h 2£ ,, I u„„..u j • id i_ 



Hustinapoor do. 14 , 9 " 2? lb°«ri">od, gives 15* by 



1 j 8* by 2*. 



Average, 15£ ,, 9 „ 2£ ,, J 



It will be observed that here again the most variable dimension is the length : 

 and the average of these north country bricks will be found to be exactly of the 

 same proportions as the average of those at Mahabalipoor, the length 15£ and 

 breadth 9, being pretty nearly to the length 12 and breadth 7£ inches as the thick- 

 ness 2i is to the thickness 2. 



