OR CUTTACK. 813 



A short way up the Udaya Giri hill, the Nour or palace of the famous Ra- 

 ja Lalat Indra Kesari, is pointed out as the chief curiosity of the place. It 

 consists of a sort of open court formed by a perpendicular face of sandstone 

 rock, about forty feet in height, with shoulders of the same projecting on ei- 

 ther side. Rows of small chambers have been excavated in each face, ar- 

 ranged in two stories, and divided by a projecting terrace. Both the exte- 

 rior surface and the inner walls of the chambers are decorated with cornices, 

 pilasters, figures, and various devices, very rudely sculptured, and the whole 

 exhibits a faint and humble resemblance, in miniature, to the celebrated ca- 

 vern temples in the south-west of India. The rude and miserable apart- 

 ments of the palace, are now occupied by byragis and mendicants of differ- 

 ent sects, who state that the place had its origin in the time of Buddha, and 

 that it was last inhabited by the Rani of the famous Raja Lalat Indra 

 Kesari, a favourer of the Buddhist religion. Many odd fables are related 

 of the scrapes into which she was led by her heretical notions, and of the 

 way in which her conversion to the orthodox system of worship was at last 

 effected. 



Farther up the same hill, on the overhanging brow of a large cavern, one 

 meets with an ancient inscription cut out of the sandstone rock, in the ve- 

 ry identical character which occurs on the pillars at Delhi, and which as 

 yet has been only very partially decyphered. Having been enabled to ob- 

 tain an exact facsimile of this interesting monument by the assistance of 

 Colonel Mackenzie, whom I conducted to the spot in 1820, I shall an- 

 nex the same to the Appendix of this paper. There are I think 

 two eminently remarkable circumstances connected with the character 

 used in the above inscription. The first is the close resemblance of some 

 of the letters to those of the Greek alphabet, and the second the occur- 

 rence of it on sundry ancient monuments situated in widely distant quar- 

 ters of India. In support of the first assertion, ] need only point the atten- 

 tion of the reader to those of the characters which are exactly similar 



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