325 
1872.] F. S. Growse — The Tlrthas of Vrindd-vana and GoTcula. 
the direction of his guru Brahmacliari Giri-dhari Das is also entitled to 
some special notice. The interior is an exact counterpart of an Italian 
church, and would be an excellent model for our architects to follow, since 
it secures to perfection both free ventilation and a softened light. It 
consists of a nave 58 feet long, with four aisles, two on either side, a 
sacrarium 21 feet in depth and a narthex of the same dimensions at the 
entrance. The outer aisles of the nave, instead of being closed in with solid 
walls, have open arches stopped only with wooden bars ; and the tier of 
windows above gives on to a balcony and verandah. Thus any glare of light 
is impossible. The building was opened for religious service in I860, and as 
it stands has cost four lakhs of rupees. The exterior has a mean and 
unsightly appearance, which might be obviated by the substitution of 
reticulated stone tracery for the wooden bars of the outer arches below and 
a more substantial balcony and verandah in lieu of the present rickety 
erection above. 
There are in Brinda-ban no secular buildings of any great antiquity. 
The oldest is the court, or Ghera, as it is called, of Sawai Jay Sinha, the found- 
er of Jaypur, who made Brinda-ban an occasional residence during the time 
that he was Governor of the Province of A'grah (1721-1728). It is a large 
walled enclosure with a pavilion at one end consisting of two aisles divided 
into five bays by piers of coupled columns of red sandstone. The river 
front of the town has a succession of ghats reaching for a distance of about 
a mile and half ; the one highest up the stream being the Kali-mardan Ghat 
with the kadamb tree from which Krishna plunged into the water to 
encounter the great serpent Kaliya ; and at the other end Kesi Ghat, where 
he slew the equine demon of that name. Near the latter are two handsome 
mansions built by the Itanis Kishori and Lachhmi, consorts of Eanjit Sinha 
and Randhir Sinha, two successive Rajas of Bharatpur. In both, the arrange- 
ment is identical with that of a mediaeval college, carried out on a miniature 
scale but with extreme elaboration of detail. The buildings are disposed 
in the form of a quadrangle, with an enriched gateway in the centre of one 
front and opposite it the chapel, of more imposing elevation than the ordinary 
domestic apartments which constitute the two Hanks of the square. In 
Rani Lachlimi’s kunj, (such being the distinctive name for a building of this 
character) the temple front is a very rich and graceful composition, with a 
colonnade ol five arches standing on a high plinth, which like every part of 
the wall surface is covered with the most delicate carving, and shaded above 
by overhanging eaves supported on bold brackets. The work of the elder 
Rani is of much plainer character ; and a third kunj, which stands a little 
lower down the river, close to the temple of Dhir Samir, built by Thakur 
Badan Sinha, the father of Suraj Mai, the first of the Bharatpur Rajas, 
though large, has no architectural pretensions whatever. The most striking 
