5 
1892 .] at Mount Uren in Mungir ( Monghyr ) district , 8fc. 
trict and on the Western frontier of the I-lan-na-po-fo-to ( Hiranya-parva - 
ta ) country, formerly included in the ancient kingdom of Magadha, 
and within the Buddhist Holy Land. It is about twenty miles distant 
from the town of Mungir in a S. W. direction, and about seven miles 
south of the present course of the Ganges, but in the rains the Ganges 
flood reaches almost up to Uren. In the Survey map the name is spelt 
“ Oorein,” but the local pronunciation and spelling of the name is 
JJren. 
Local traditions. —Tradition is singularly meagre both in regard to 
the hill itself, and the ruins and remains at its base. The only story 
which is current amongst the villagers is, that the hill was formerly the 
abode of a demon or deified giant called Lorik, famous in the nursery 
tales of Bihar. And to this Lorik were ascribed the known markings on 
the hill, viz., the lota- mark, the two footprints, and that portion of the 
hill called ‘ the house.’ The existence of Buddha’s footprint and the 
numerous inscriptions on the summit of the hill, and a footprint and 
inscriptions at the S. E. base were, however, unknown to the villagers, 
until I pointed them out. 
Conformation of Hill identical with Hiuen Tsiang's description 
Of the hill itself no more concise description could be given than that 
contained in Beal’s translation,* viz., “ a small solitary hill with succes¬ 
sive crags heaped up.” The hill is also “ a small solitary mountainf 
with a double peak rising high.” In appearance, therefore, the hill 
literally satisfies both the original and alternative descriptions. The hill 
is bare and devoid of vegetation, except in a few chinks in the rock 
where a scanty soil and debris have accumulated. Its black naked 
rocks, rising in a rugged series of crags abruptly from the plain, give 
it a most weird appearance. The rock consists of granite of a pale 
bluish colour on fracture, and its surface, where unpolished, becomes 
covered over with a black lichen. The hill is isolated and solitary, 
being distant about two miles from the mass of the Mungir hills, here 
consisting of what Buchanan calls ‘ silicious hornstone ’J, and separated 
from these by a stretch of plain, now under rice cultivation. The height 
of the hill seems to be about 250 feet above the surrounding plain. The 
shape of the hill is seen in the accompanying sketch-map (see Plate I), 
which also indicates the position of the remains and rock-markings. 
The southern peak is the higher and forms the true summit of the hill. 
# Loc. cit. 
+ One of the translations gives ‘mountain’ instead of hill, but Beale shows 
that the word also means ‘ hill,’ and there are no mountains in this part of India. 
J Eastern India , II, 166. It is commonly known as quartzite. 
