1865.] Report of the Archeological Survey. 189 
settlement of the place is very much older, being attributed to the 
fabulous Raja Vena Chakravartti, who plays such a conspicuous part 
in all the legends of North Bihar, Qudh, and Rohilkhand. 
228. The temples of Soron are very numerous, and several of them 
are said to be old. But the only temples of any consequence are those 
of Sita-Rdmji, on the top of the mound, and Vardhaji to the north- 
west of the city. A great annual fair is held near the latter temple 
on the 11th of the waxing moon of Wéargasirsha, in remembrance of 
the destruction of the demon by the Boar incarnation of Vishnu. It 
contains a statue of Vardha Lakshmi, and is visited by crowds of pil- 
grims. The temple of Sita-Rdmy?, which is said to have been ruined 
by Aurang Shah (or Aurangzib) was restored by a wealthy Baniya, 
only four years ago, by building up the space between the pillars with 
plain white-washed walls. Internally the temple is a square of 27 
feet supported on 16 stone pillars; but the people say that the original 
building was much larger, and that it contained 32 pillars. This ac- 
count is most probably correct, as the foundations of the walls of the 
sanctum, or shrine, are still standing at the back, or west side, of the 
temple. There are also 10 superfluous pillars inside the temple, of 
which two support the broken architrayves, and eight are built into the 
corner spaces of the walls. The style of these columns is similar to that 
: 
of the set of pillars in the south-east corner of the quadrangle of the 
Great Kutb Mosque at Delhi, which bear the date of Samvat 1124, or 
A. D. 1067. That this date is not too early for the Soron temple is 
proved by the inscriptions of various pilgrims who have visited the 
_ shrine. As the oldest legible record bears the date of Samvat 1226, 
_ or A. D. 1169, the date of the erection of the temple cannot therefore 
~ be placed later than A. D. 1000. 
229. ‘These pilgrim’s records are generally short and uninteresting, 
but as there are no less than 38 of them, bearing dates which range 
from A. D. 1169 to 1511, they become valuable for tracing the 
history of the temple. The earliest date after the Muhammadan con- 
£ quest is A. D. 1241, and from that time down to A. D. 1290 there are 
no less than 15 dated records, showing that Soron continued to be a 








tauch frequented place of pilgrimage during the whole period of the 
 Ghori dynasty, which ended in A. D. 1289. But during the rule of 
the next two dynasties, the Khiljis and Zughlaks, there is only one 
