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1872.] A. M. Broadley — The Buddhistic Remains of Bihdr. 
covered by a mud fort. To the south of the village is another large tank and 
I found several Buddhistic figures on its banks. To the west of it is a fine 
uncultivated plain studded with mangoe groves and stretching away as far as 
the eye can reach to the distant hills of Barabar. In the western outskirts 
of the plain, and not far from the side of the tank, are the marks of a 
large tumulus, and several Buddhist figures surround it. Following a road 
for about a mile to the south across the plain, I came quite suddenly on a 
large tumulus on the outskirts of a village, the name of which is Lat. About 
a hundred yards to the east of this place, in the midst of a rice field lies an 
enormous column hewn from a single stone— -fifty -two feet in length. The 
base is square, and seven feet long by three broad ; the capital is of the same 
shape, but is five feet long and four broad. The shaft has sixteen sides, each 
about six inches hi breadth. There is not a vestige of a temple or building 
in this plain of rice, fields, in fact one might almost say as appropriately of 
it, as of the Sundarban, that “ there is no stone big enough there to throw 
at a dog.” The appearance of this enormous solitary column lying by itself, 
half buried in the sandy soil which surrounds it, is very striking. The villagers 
of Lat [the vernacular for ‘ a pillar’] have their own story about their venerat- 
ed deity (for puja is daily offered to it), and it is as follows. More than a 
thousand years ago Sibai Singh reigned in Tirhut, having Darbhangah for his 
capital. The king’s servants were martial men of the Rajput daste, and his 
favourite was a soldier named Ranjit Singh. One day the king went to see 
the progress of the works at a tank which he was excavating near bis palace, 
and Ranjit; Singh was of his guards. The king and his companions began to 
throw up the earth and assist the workmen at their labour, but Ranjit stood 
aloof leaning on his spear. This provoked the king who began to chide him 
for his indifference. The soldier replied, ‘ I am by caste a Khatria, my busi- 
ness is to fight or to execute any great commission you may entrust me 
with — not to dig or build.’ On this the king wrote a letter to the prince of 
Ceylon, who was no other than the mighty Raban, and requested him to send 
two colossal pillars for the new tanks.* The execution of this order was 
made over to Ranjit Singh. Taking the letter, Ranjit made his way to the 
“ golden island of the south,” and having procured the pillars, enlisted the 
aid of the “ dhuts,” or supernatural messengers to convey them to Tirhut. 
These, although possessed of enormous strength could only travel by 
night. The first reached Darbhangah in safety, but the bearers of the second 
tarried at Sarunda to get oil for their torches, and the dawn breaking upon 
* To plaoe a large pillar in the centre of a tank was a custom of the times. In 
a great tank just outside Bihar there is a column about twenty feet high still stand- 
ing. This custom has hardly ceased to prevail. General Claude Martin erected a 
colossal pillar in the middle of the artificial lake which faces the Indo-Italian palace 
which he built in Lakhnau. 
