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1903.] Nundolal Dey— Notes on Chirand in the District of Saran. 87 
Notes on Chirand in the District of Saran.—By Nundolal Dey, 
Subordinate Judge of Jessore. 
[Read June, 1903.] 
Chirand is six miles to the east of Cliupra. It is situated on the 
bank of the river Saraju. The Ganges formerly flowed past the town. 
Sir William Hunter in 1877 placed Chirand on the Ganges. 1 2 The old 
dry bed of the Ganges still exists immediately to the south of Chupra, 
and beyond it runs the Saraju. The Sone and the Saraju now join the 
Ganges at Singhi, two miles to the east of Chirand. 
Chirand must at one time have been a celebrated place to have 
lent its name to Chupra, which is often called Chiran-Chupra by the 
people of other districts, Chiran being an abbreviation of the word 
Chirand. Extensive mounds of earth, said to be the remains of an an¬ 
cient fort, still exist at this place, and the hermitage of Rishi Chyavana 
and two very small tanks called Jiach Kundu and Brahma Kundu in 
the Chirand-Mahatmy a , situated at different portions of the site of the 
fort, are pointed out as vestiges of the ancient Hindu period. A fair 
takes place every year on the last day of the month of Karttik at the 
spot which is called Chyavana-asrama. 
Chirand is popularly known as the capital of king Mayuradhvaja, 
and the tradition still exists that he and his queen sawed down their 
son in order to satisfy the craving for human flesh of Siva who came 
to the king in the disguise of an old Brahman to test his generosity and 
charitable feeling for which he wns celebrated, though he was afterwards 
restored to life by the satisfied god. But the tradition differs from the 
story given in the Jaimini-Bhdrata 2 which places the capital of Mayura¬ 
dhvaja at Ratnapura, near the Nerbuda, and relates that Krishna in the 
disguise of an old Brahman came to the king and told him that his only 
1 Statistical Account of Bengal, Vol. XI, p, 263, 
2 Chapters 45 and 46. 
