1877.] 
33 
Chandrasekhara Banurji-— The Kaimur Range. 
we found would be vain. So we resorted to a stronger argument. The 
math was instituted for charitable purposes. We were guests whom the 
priest was by duty bound to shelter. Neglect on his part, we observed, 
would be a serious dereliction of duty, and he would see to his cost that 
another man would soon succeed, if he further continued to argue. This 
had the desired effect. A change came over the spirit of the jmest, and he 
was all humility and charity again. 
We rose early, or rather mistook the moonlit night for dawn, and 
went on looking on the silent hills and the twinkling stars until the faint 
dawn broke in. We felt the incense of the morning refreshing and 
inciting us to repeat—* 
“Will not man awake and springing from his bed of sloth enjoy this cool, 
This fragrant hour, to meditation due and sacred song ?” 
But our meditation was rather roughly disturbed as we turned round 
and spied a huge black brute passing in front of us. “ Is this a boar ?” Our 
stout companion of a chaukidar said, “ A bhal only”. But before I turn¬ 
ed again, Master Bruin was far away, and we regret we did not see more of 
his bearish majesty. A few minutes trotting up and down brought us back 
to the rough pass of Tara Chandi. 
The sun was just up, and we enquired of a nymph dressed in ochre- 
coloured clothes, and who appeared to be the keeper of the shrine, if there 
was any writing on the rocks. She went into an adjacent cave and pointed 
it out to us. The cave was still dark, and we had to obtain a 
lamp from the priestess. The cave faces the south, and is at the 
extremity of the ridge which breaks in at the Pass. This is the 
only Pass which affords any thoroughfare to the country which lies east 
of the range. The country is well defended by nature. It is a cart-shaped 
tract, having the hills on the north and west, and the broad Son on the 
east. This secluded country, whose breadth varies from two to twelve miles, 
appears from the inscriptions to have been the principality of a Bajput 
chief, who was also the lord of the strongholds on the hills, before 
the Moslem banner was hoisted on them. The name of this chief was 
Pratap Dhaval Ail, of the order or gotra of Parsa Rajputs. He was a 
great worshipper of S'ahti, and, having founded the shrines of Bhavani in 
the glen of “ Tut tala” and of Tripura at the waterfall, built up a third 
for Tara Chandi at the only pass through which his dominions could be 
approached from Sahasram and the open country. The cave which adjoins 
the shrine, is enfaced with a masonry wall, in which there is one door. 
A veranda fronts this wall, and rests on a row of slender stone pillars 
overlooking the pass. The cave has therefore one artificial and three 
natural sides, although the side walls are partly made up of masonry, 
to make the room rectangular. In the rear wall or rock, there is a 
E 
