must once have been the site of some famous Buddhist Vihâr. But the only existing Buddhist remains that I could find were votive stupas and fragments of figures. One of the last was inscribed with characters of about A. D. 900, but the inscription is unfortunately only a fragment.

The city of Bihâr consists principally of one long narrow street, paved with rough stones. There are two bridges with pointed arches over some irrigation canals, the remains of former prosperity; but the whole place is now dirty and decayed. In all directions are seen Musalmân tombs; the smaller ones of brick, the larger ones of squared and carved stones from the usual Muhammadan quarries of ruined Buddhist or Brahmanical buildings. To the north-west of the city there is a long isolated hill, having a precipitously steep cliff on its northern face, and on the southern face an casy slope in successive ledges of rock. The hill is now crowned by some Musalmân buildings, of which the largest is said to be the tomb of Malik Bayâ, but I believe that it is the tomb of one Ibrahim in the reign of Firuz, as I read both of these names in one of the inscriptions. To the north-east of these tombs and distant 1,000 feet, on the highest point of the hill, there is a square platform of brick, which must once have been the basement of a building, perhaps of a stupa, while the more genial site of the Durgâh, where fine trees are now growing, might once have held a Buddhist Vihâr and its attendant monastery.

One mile due east from the Durgâh, and about 100 yards inside the northern gate of the old fort of Bibâr, there lies a sand-stone pillar which bears two separate inscriptions of the Gupta Dynasty. Unfortunately, the surface of the stone has peeled off considerably, so that both of the inscriptions are incomplete. The upper inscription, which is of Kumara Gupta, has lost both ends of every line, being probably about one-third of the whole. The lower inscription has lost only the left upper corner, and some unknown amount at the bottom, where the pillar is broken off. But as the remaining portion of the upper part is letter for letter the same as the opening of the Bhitari pillar inscription, nearly the whole of the missing part of the left upper corner can be restored at

*

once. This record apparently belongs to Skanda Gupta, the son and successor of Kumâra Gupta, as the genealogy is continued beyond Kumâra in the same words as in the Bhitari inscription.

Outside the northern gate of the old fort, there are some tombs that are said to belong to Christians, as they lie east and west, whilst all Musalmân tombs lie north and south. One of them bears an inscription surmounted by a cross, which proves it to be a Christian tomb. The inscription I believe to be in the Armenian character, but though it does not appear to be old, probably not more than fifty or a hundred years, yet I could not obtain information regarding any

the tombs.

The cyclopean walls of the old fort are very curious; but as the fort has been fully described by Buchanan, it is unnecessary for me to do more than make this mention of it.

X. GHOSRAWA.

A Buddhistical inscription from Ghosrâwâ, a village to the S. S. W. of Bihâr, distant 7 miles, was first discovered by Major Kittoe, who published a translation of it made by Dr. Ballantyne. This inscription is a very important one for the illustration of the later history of Buddhism, as it mentions the existence, somewhere about the 8th or 9th century, of several of the most famous places of the Buddhists. For instance, it mentions, 1st, the Kanishka Monastery in the city of Nagarahâra, close to Jelalabad in the Kabul Valley; 2nd, the Vajrasan, or Diamond throne of Buddha, at BuddhaGaya; 3rd, the Indra-Sila peak, which I have already identified with Giryek; 4th, the Vihâr in Nâlanda, the city of Yaso Varmma. This part of the translation, however, requires revision, as the name of Nâlanda, which occurs twice, has in both instances been rendered as if it was merely a term for some ascetic posture, instead of the proper name of the

* See Plate XVII. for the Bihar Pillar inscriptions, and Plate XXVII. for the Bhitari Pillar inscription. Babu Rajendralal Mitra, in the Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal 1866, p. 271, denies the accuracy of my statement. He says "General Cunningham imagines it to be a counterpart of the Bhitari record"-I imagine nothing of the kind. My remarks refer to the upper part of the inscription alone, and this I again assert to be "letter for letter the same as the opening of the Bhitari Pillar inscription." The Babu says that "no specific name is legible." I refer him to his own Nagari transcript of line 4, where he reads kechapotrasya. This should be kacha, for Ghatot-kacha, the predecessor of Chandra Gupta, whose wife Kumâri Devi is mentioned in the next line.

town which contained the most famous monastery in all India. I will submit this inscription for re-translation.

The other remains at Ghosrâwâ are few and unimportant. There is a mound of brick ruin touching the village, and a small temple on a low mound with some broken figures between Ghosrâwâ and the small village of Asânagar. The inscription obtained by Major Kittoe is now fixed in the wall of this temple. At the western foot of the Ghosrâwâ mound there is a four-armed standing male statue of life size, inscribed with the usual formula of the Buddhist faith. In the upper right hand there is a necklace, but the lower hand is open, the upper left hand holds a lotus, and the lower hand a bell. There is a small figure of Buddha in the head dress of the statue, from which I believe that this figure represents Avalokiteswara, as Hwen Thsang describes a similar statue at the Kapotika Sangharâma. The characters of the inscription do not seem to me to be later than A. D. 800.

On the top of the mound I found the lower portion of a female figure, of which the upper part was fixed in the ground near the Asânagar Temple. The statue is two-armed, and holds a lotus in one hand. It probably represents Dharmma. There are two four-armed female attendants, that to the left carrying a human head.

XI. TITARAWA.

At Titarâwa, 2 miles to the north of Ghosrâwâ, there is a fine large tank 1,200 feet in length, with a considerable mound of brick ruin to the north, and a colossal statue of the ascetic Buddha to the south, which is now called Bhairav. The pedestal is 7 feet broad, and the whole figure is still 9 feet high, although the upper portion is wanting. The usual Buddhist formula is inscribed on the lotus leaves of the pedestal. There are besides several others small and unimportant, one of which bears the Buddhist formula, and another inscription in three lines of small letters. The greater portion of this inscription is injured, but sufficient remains to declare the date of the statue, which I believe to be about A. D. 800; I can read the name of Mahâpâla at the end of it. On the west side of the statue there is the foundation of a brick stupa, 18 feet in diameter.

The mound of Titarâwa is about 20 feet high, and has a small modern fort on the top, with a round tower at each of the angles. Excavations for bricks are still going on, as at the period of Major Kittoe's visit. I traced the remains of several walls, from which I infer that the mound was the site of a large monastery. There is no mention of this place either in Fa-Hian or Hwen Thsang.

XII. APHSAR.

Five miles to the east of Ghosrâwâ, and on the eastern bank of the Sakri River, there is a low hill covered with brick ruins, close to a village called Aphsar. The long and important inscription of a second dynasty of Guptas, that was discovered at this place by Major Kittoe, is no longer to be found at Aphsar. The people are unanimous in stating that Major Kittoe removed it to Nowâda for the purpose of copying it; and he himself states that he "brought it away to re-examine it, and to restore it as much as possible before having it fixed in a pedestal near the Varâha" in Aphsar. I enquired for this inscription at Nowâda, at Gaya, and at Banaras, but could not hear any thing of it. The loss of this important inscription is very much to be regretted; but luckily I possess a transcript of it in modern Nagari, which Major Kittoe himself gave me in 1850. This has been submitted to Bâbu Rajendralal Mitra for translation.*

XIII. BARABAR.

At 16 miles to the north of Gaya, or 19 miles by the road, there are several groups of granite hills, called KauwaDol, Barabar, Nágárjuni, and Dharáwat.† All of these possess some Buddhistic remains, but the most interesting are the caves of Barabar and Nágárjuni, which were hewn out of the solid rock upwards of two thousand years ago.

Kauwa-Dol is a detached hill nearly one mile to the south-west of the main group of hills, and just six miles

* The Bâbu's translation will be found in the Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal for 1866, p. 272. The inscription gives the genealogy of a dynasty of nine Gupta Kings. There is apparently nothing to guide us in fixing the date, and, in the absence of the original document, I can only conjecture that these Guptas are of later date than the well-known Gupta dynasty of the Allahabad and Bhitari Pillar inscriptions. I possess gold coins of three later Princes, Vishnu, Kumâra, and Jaya, who probably belonged to the family of the Aphsar

record.

† See Plate XVIII.