1899.] 
ANCIENT SITES OF S'RINAGAR A 
149 
Temple of Pravares- 
vara. 
96. A short distance to the south-east of the Bhimasvamin rock, 
and outside Akbar’s fortress, lies the Ziarat of 
Bahau-d-din Sahib, built undoubtedly with the 
materials of an ancient temple. The cemetery 
which surrounds it contains also many ancient remains in its tombs 
and walls. At the south-west corner of this cemetery rises a ruined gate¬ 
way built of stone-blocks of remarkable size, and still of considerable 
height. This structure is traditionally believed by the S'rinagar 
Pandits to have belonged to the temple of 8'iva Pravaresvara which 
Kalbana mentions as the first shrine erected by Pravarasena in his new 
capital. 1 
An old legend related by Kalbana and before him already by 
Bi 111 ana, makes the king ascend bodily to heaven from the temple of 
Pravaresvara. Bilhana speaks of the temple as “ showing to this day 
a gap above, resembling the gate of heaven through which King 
Pravara bodily ascended to heaven.” 2 Kalbana, writing a century later, 
also saw at the temple of Pravaresvara “ a gate resembling the gate of 
heaven.” Its broken stone roof was supposed to mark the king’s pas¬ 
sage on his way to S'iva’s abode. 
This tradition still attaches to the roofless stone-gate above de¬ 
scribed, which may indeed be the very structure seen by Bilhana and 
the Chronicler. As far as its architecture is concerned, it might well 
belong to the earliest monuments of S'rinagar. It owes its preservation 
perhaps to the exceptional solidity of its construction and the massive¬ 
ness of its stones. Stone-blocks measuring up to sixteen feet in length 
with a width and thickness equally imposing were no convenient 
materials for the builders of Muhammadan Ziarats, Hammams, etc., who 
have otherwise done so much to efface the remains of ancient structures 
in S'rinagar. The position of the ruin is very central and might well 
have been chosen by the founder of Pravarapura for a prominent shrine 
in his new city. 
Not far from Bahau-d-dln Sahib’s Ziarat to the south-west stands 
the Jami‘ Masjld, the greatest Mosque of 
S'rinagar. Around it numerous ancient re¬ 
mains attest the former existence of Hindu 
temples. Proceeding still further to the eoutli-west in the midst of a 
thickly built city quarter, we reach an ancient shrine which has remain¬ 
ed in a comparatively fair state of preservation probably owing to its 
early conversion into a Ziarat. It is now supposed to mark the resting 
place of the saint styled Pir Haji Muhammad. It consists of an octa- 
Position of Rana- 
svamin temple. 
1 See Rajdt. iii. 350 note. 
8 See ViTtram. xviii, 23. 
