Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 
[No. 3, 
30G 
At Kesariya there is a middle age tope of cylindrical form, stand¬ 
ing on the ruins of an ancient hemispherical tope. The tope is 
attributed to Rajah Ben Chakravartti. 
The two pillars bearing Asoka’s inscriptions stand to the north 
and south of Bettiah. Hodgson’s names of Radliia and Matliia 
serve only to mislead. Each of the pillars is called Laor (Lowr) and 
the adjacent village in each case is called Laoriya. The southern 
Laoriya is a small village, but it is close to the celebrated Hindu 
shrine of Ara Raj Malradeo, and is two miles distant from Pcirhia , 
a small village to the west. The northern Laoriya is a large village. 
It is, however, to the north of Bettiah, a little west, instead of to the 
west a little north as stated by Hodgson, and it is at least fifteen 
miles from the Gunduk instead of being on its bank. From Prinsep’s 
notice, I infer that Hodgson’s information was derived from a na¬ 
tive Munshi who wrote in Persian. The native evidently shirked 
the Phallic name of Laoriya and substituted the names of other vil¬ 
lages. Matlria is a tolerably large village two miles to the south¬ 
west of the northern Laoriya. The pillars themselves are objects of 
worship. I copied the two inscriptions which are generally in very 
good order. About half a mile to the south-west of the northern 
pillar there is a gigantic mound at least eighty feet high, and about 
four hundred feet in diameter at top. This is the ruined fort of 
JVavand-yarh, a name by which I would purpose to call the northern 
pillar, while the southern pillar ought perhaps to be called Ara-Raj. 
North and South Laoriya are the simplest names, but perhaps Nav- 
and-garli Laoriya and Ara-Raj Laoriya might be preferred. Under 
any circumstances Radhia and Matliia must be given up. 
Immediately to the west of the northern pillar there are numer¬ 
ous earthen mounds, some of them from forty-five to fifty feet in 
height. These I take to be earthen Topes or Barrows, the most an¬ 
cient form of the Stupa. Two or three of these should be carefully 
excavated. I dug up two of the numerous smaller mounds without 
any result. But, as both Major Pearse and Mr. Lynch have found 
relics in superficial excavations, I feel satisfied that the larger 
mounds on which brick buildings of some kind have once existed 
would well repay excavation. 
At Kasiya I opened the cylindrical tope on the mound. This 
tope is a middle-age one, and the mound itself is the ancient tope. 
There is a second ruined brick mound to the eastward on the bank 
