28 Notes of a towr in the Tributary Mehals. [No. 1, 
weapon of the tributary mehals. Close to the temples there is a stone- 
faced tank. 
Six miles to the west of the above ruins at Sirnidee there is another 
small temple which appears to have been overlooked by the destroyer. 
The dome over the fane is still standing, and part of the vestibule, 
the latter a pyramidal roof supported on columns. The stones forming 
the lintels and uprights of the entrance to the fane are elaborately 
carved with minute representations of all the principal Hindu gods. 
Shiva.and his wife on Nandi occupying the place of honour in the 
centre of the lintel. 
The Ruksale Rajpoot family who now hold Sirgoojah, have no 
tradition regarding the antiquities I am describing, but they tell me 
that under the Mahratta rule, their ancestors often availed themselves 
of tlie retreat of the Hathphor to save their property from pillage and 
their women from dishonour. 
The ruins of an ancient castle of the Ruksale Rajahs of Sirgoojah 
are to be seen on a hill near Bisrampore, and this appears to be the 
Sirgoojah, marked as the chief town on the map, shewing again the 
antiquity of the information from which the maps of these unsuryeyed 
tracts had been filled in. ' 
According to the tradition preserved in the family, the first Ruksale 
was called into existence by a ‘Muni’ or sage, to destroy a demon 
that troubled the holy man in his devotions. The hero thus created 
was the ancestor of the lovely Rukmini carried off by Krishna. In 
about Samvat 251, a lineal descendant of Rukmini’s brother, Ruk- 
man, entered Sirgoojah and fought with and killed the Rajah of the 
place called ‘ Balind,’ and became Rajah in his room, The present 
Maharajah Inderjeet Singh has a family tree to shew that he is the 
111th in descent from the conqueror of Balind ! but I have been told 
there is a popular tradition assigning to the family a local origin, and 
considering there are no Ruksales in any other country, it is not un- 
likely that it is the most truthful of the two. If so, it is probable 
that the family are derived from the same stock as the ‘ Gours,’ the 
most influential and numerous of the races now inhabiting Sirgoojah. , 
In A. D. 1758, a Mahratta army in progress to the Ganges 
overran the district of Sirgoojah, and the chief was compelled 
to acknowledge himself a tributary of the Berar government, but 

