164 C. Horne —Notes on the ruins at Banaras and Jaunpur. [No. 2, 
likely to be, and we reported our success in the pages of this Journal. 
Chief amongst these was the one at Bakharya Kund, which Mr. Sher- 
ring brought to notice some years ago. Here we found a small mosque, the 
substructure of which we hold to be original ancient Hindu or Buddhist 
work. There were also many terraces, girt at their base with massive mould¬ 
ings, breast works built up of large cut stones, low cloisters constructed of 
old square columns, and foundations built of huge brick and very many feet 
in thickness (10 to 30 ft.). Over the ground were scattered carved stones, 
broken statues, kulsis or top stones, 9 feet in diameter, with many other re¬ 
mains. Below these basement mouldings or blocks of stones, squared on three 
sides and rough internally, which had been laid bare by the weather, were 
many incised inscriptions in the Gupta character. A few of these have been 
collected on the.accompanying plate, and these have principally, but not 
wholly, been copied from stones ‘ in situ.’ This is one of the principal 
grounds of our opinion, which was not hastily formed. The inscriptions were 
kindly translated for me by my learned friend Babu Bajendralala Mitra. 
The small mosque is a very curious one of conversion, if it be one. The 
ground plan is not that of a mosque at all, but of an Indian temple. 
It is a square with a square projected on each face. On that facing the 
East, however, the projection has not been carried out, but instead an enor¬ 
mous stone has been let in as a base for the singhasan on which was to stand 
the figure of Sakhya. From the base arise pillars, severe in character, square 
as all the ancient Hindu pillars were in this part of the country, whilst above 
the Muslims have put on a dome. It has been figured in our account in the 
J. A. S. for 1866, and even struck J. Prinsep who lithographed it in his 
views of Banaras. The massiveness of the pillars, which are built up of single 
stones without mortar, has ensured permanence. 
Other remains near are held by us to be of equal antiquity. These have 
been preserved by being used as tombs for the burial of great men or 
of saints. With the wealth of material lying about, the Muslims of 
Banaras appear seldom to have built a tomb, but at Jaunpur there are 
most elegant mausoleums in which little or no Hindu materials have been 
employed. 
The strange way in which pillars have been used as architraves at Bakha¬ 
rya Kund is very singular, but the height of absurdity was at Sayyidpur 
Bliitari, a great Buddhist site, where I saw a linga put up for a Muhammadan 
head stone at a grave, with a little niche for the lamp cut in it, and this 
linga had been carved out of a Buddhist column. After this, one can wonder 
at no amount of conversion or alteration by the Muslims. 
I trust that in the above notes I have shewn some ground for the views 
I hold in regard to the buildings, the date of which is under discussion, and 
I would beg to refer the reader to the ample details in this Journal for 1868. 
