14 Notes on Assam Temple Buins. [No. 1. 



flattish surface of the seed-beds in the centre of the flowers, Cap- 

 tain Westmacott mistook for the rests of " Lingas." A few of 

 these symbols are found in and about Tezpore. On the hill be- 

 yond the sepoys' lines, there is a shrine of brick, containing one, 

 7 feet in girth, in a circular Yoni between 7 and 8 feet in diame- 

 ter. The others are fitted into Yonis, sometimes square and some- 

 times round, but the Lingas are all of the same form, square at the 

 base, octagonal in the centre, and circular in the plan of the upper 

 portion, which appears above the Yoni. 



The socket of the Yoni is cut so as to accord with the square and 

 octagonal portion of the inserted part of the Linga. It will be 

 observed, from this mode of construction and insertion, that it was 

 impossible, without moving the Yoni, to disturb the Linga ; where 

 the former is large and heavy and firmly fixed in masonry, by rivet 

 or clamps, it would have been no easy matter to have moved either. 



In the destruction of one of the temples dedicated to this wor- 

 ship, and which, till very recently had not been disturbed since its 

 overthrow, a Yoni of vast weight, measuring three feet two inches 

 square, was dislodged, and sent flying over the head of its Linga, 

 which it fractured and caused to incline as it passed ; by no agency, 

 that I can think of, but gunpowder. There was also a stone door 

 case, the lintel and uprights of which lie broken, by some force, that 

 projected the pieces in the same direction as the Linga. 



This Linga, four feet in length, was contained in a shrine of brick, 

 and that was not the only brick edifice amongst the holy buildings 

 of Pura, some of these appear to have been built as depositaries for 

 cinerary urns.* One solid mass of brick masonry, on being re- 

 moved, was found to enclose a small square chamber, in which there 

 was an urn, containing ashes and fragments of burnt bone. 



The urn was unfortunately broken by the workmen. It was of 

 very superior black pottery, ornamented with flowers in basso re- 

 lievo, and from the fragments seen, the form is represented to me, 

 as having been something like fig. 2 Plate VII. 



* In Col. Wilford's account of ancient India, the Rishis held sovereignty in 

 Assam. The figure at the base of the large pillar (Plate V.) is recognised by in- 

 telligent Hindoos as Nareda Rishi and the Rishis burned their dead, preserving 

 their ashes in Dagopes or Tope?. — S. F. Hannay. 



