OR CI7TTACK, 316 



istic mark which appears in company with it, thus c0b,"* does in some sort 

 seem to identify it with the former worship, 1 am persuaded that a full ex- 

 planation is to be looked for only from some of the learned of the Jain sect. 



The Vishnu or Purushotama Khetr (Pursottem Chetr) extends, 1 be- Jagannath, 

 -Meve, properly from the Bytarni to the Rassikoila river at Ganjam, but the 

 more sacred part of it is comprised within a range of five coss, in the cen- 

 tre of which, termed fantastically the Sank"h Nabhi Mendel, and on a 

 low ridge of sand hills dignified with the title of the Nilgiri or Nilachal 

 (Mae mountain), stands the famous temple of Jagannath, " that mighty Pa- 

 goda or Pagod, the mirror of all wickedness and idolatry." The building 

 in its form and distribution resembles closely the great Pagoda at Bhuban- 

 neswar ; nor do the dimensions of the two edifices greatly differ, but the Ja- 

 ganath one has the advantage in point of situation. Altogether its appear- 

 ance is certainly imposing from its loftiness and the mass of masonry which 

 it comprizes, but the execution is extremely rude and inelegant, and the form 

 and proportions of the principal object, the Bar Dewal or great tower, are, 

 it must be acknowledged, by no means pleasing to the eye. The present 

 edifice was completed A D. 1198 at a cost of from forty to fifty lacs of 

 Kupees, under the superintendence of Param Hans Bajpoi, the minister of 

 Raja Anang Bhim Deo, who was unquestionably the most illustrious of all 

 the Gajapati princes of Orissa, and it seems unaccountable that in an age 

 when the architects obviously possessed some taste and skill, and were in 

 most cases particularly lavish in their use of sculptured ornament, so little 

 pains should have been taken with the decoration and finishing- of this sa- 

 cred and stupendous edifice. Its appearance has farther suffered of late 

 years from the exterior having been covered with a coating of chanam which 

 has all been washed off excepting a few r stains and patches, and still more 

 from the barbarous practice now in force of marking out parts of thesculp- 



* Mr. Colebiooke, in Lis account of the Jains, gives the figure of a mark very much resembling- this 

 *Jiich he calls the Naudayieria, characteristic of the deilied saiut A'ra. 



N u 2 



