10 Notes on Assam Temple Ruins. [No. 1. 



cause it to be repaired, and restored to something like its original 

 form, but be endowed it witb lands, priests, musicians and dancing 

 girls." A large colony of the latter class have sprung up in the 

 vicinity of the temple, and one set of performers daily exhibit 

 before the shrine. 



It is certain that the vaulted brick addition of Noro Narayn, 

 replaced a dismantled stone edifice, which they had not the skill 

 to restore. The flight of stone steps, from the bottom to the top 

 of the hill, is composed of slabs, which were never cut for such a 

 purpose, and from the appearance of these and other stones lying 

 about, it is evident, that the temple* must have possessed other 

 buildings of stone, besides those now extant. Not far from Hajou, 

 and on a loftier hill, the ascent of which it facilitated by rude stone 

 steps, is another temple composed entirely of granite now dedicated 

 to the worship of Kedar Nath. The shrine appears to have sur- 

 vived the general overthrow of contemporaneous fanes, but the 

 ancient vestibule is razed to the ground and a thatched shed covers 

 its foundation. 



Near the banks of the Brahmaputra below Tezpore, the temple 

 known as Singori or Gopeswar next claims our attention ; externally 

 it presents a most uninviting appearance, and might be passed as a 

 very ordinary brick building of no great antiquity ; but this brick 

 work is only a sheathing, as of lava, with which the old temple is 

 covered : above ground, outside, about ten feet of the old shrine 

 may still be seen. 



The brick shell covers the remainder and all the vestibule. The 

 interior is however in its original state, and is very worthy of notice. 

 It gives us the whole plan of construction of the larger temples of 

 antiquity, and the position of most of the columns and other frag- 



* The situation of these temples with reference to the town of Kusha, their site 

 on the further bank of the Hirango, and one of them being to the present day 

 consecrated to the worship of Maha Muni, together with the high degree of rever- 

 ence paid to the place, by Budhists, would lead us to infer, with as much certainty 

 as any short of positive testimony, that one of them was the Choityo adorned with 

 the head ornament near which was the grove of Sal trees (there are plenty of 

 them) where Sakya Muni went to his last sleeping bed, and near which also the 

 rites of cremation were performed.— From Mr. Robinson's MS. 



