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68
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
in explanation, and it is said that, here Balarâm sat down (baitha) to wait for Krishna. The myth was accepted; a lake immediately outside the village was styled Balbhadra Kund, was furnished with a handsome masonry ghât by Rûp Ram, Katâra of Barsána, about the middle of last century, and is now regarded as positive proof of the popular etymology which connects the place with Balarâm. Of Rûp Râm, the Katara, further mention will be made in connection with his birth-place Barsâna. There is scarcely a sacred site in the whole of Braj which does not exhibit some ruinous record in the shape of temple or tank of his unbounded wealth and liberality. His successor in the fourth descent, a most worthy man, by name Lakshman Dâs, lives in a corner of one of his ancestor's palaces, and is dependent on charity for his daily bread. The present owners of many of the villages, so munificently endowed by Rûp Ram, are four cousins, residents of Calcutta, the representatives of a Bengali Kayath by name Krishan Chandra, but better known as the Lâla Bâbu, who, in the year 1811, made a disastrous visit to this district, and by an affected regard for the holy places and assumption of the character of an ascetic cajoled the old Zamindars out of their landed estates, in several cases purchasing them outright for a sum which is less than the rental of a single year. Property so lightly acquired is, it seems, lightly esteemed; and its present condition pointedly illustrates the evils supposed to be inseparable from absenteeism.
[MARCH 1, 1872.
grounds also it may be inferred that the whole series is due to that monarch rather than to his predecessor Shir Shâh. For at the entrance of the civil station of Mathurâ is a fourth Sarai, now much modernized and of somewhat inferior character to the other three, though probably of the same date. This, with the little hamlet outside its walls, is known by the name of Jalalpur in honour of Jalal-uddin Akbar, who was therefore, presumably, its founder. Similarly the Chaumuha Sarâi is always described in the old topographies as at Akbarpur. This latter name is now restricted in application to a village some three miles distant; but in the 16th century local divisions were few in number and wide in extent, and beyond a doubt the foundation of the imperial sarai was the origin of the local name which has now deserted the actual spot that suggested it. The formation of Chau muh a into a separate village dates from a very recent period, when the name was bestowed in consequence of the discovery of an ancient sculpture, supposed by the ignorant rustics to represent the fourheaded (Chaumunhâ) god Brahma. The stone is in fact the base of a Jaina pillar or statue, with a lion projecting at each corner and arude figure in each of the four intermediate spaces. The upper margin is rudely carved with the pattern commonly known as the Buddhist rail.
From the description given by John de Läet, in his India Vera, written in the year 1631, we find these sarâis were managed precisely as onr modern Dâk Bangalâs. He says "They occur at intervals of five or six kos, built either by the king or by some of the nobles, and in them travellers can find bed and lodging: when a person has once taken possession he may not be turned out by any one." They are fine fortlike buildings, with massive battlemented walls and bastions, and high-arched gateways. Though primarily built merely from selfish motives, on the line of road traversed by the imperial camps, they were at the same time enormous boons to the general public; for the highway was then beset with gangs of robbers, with whose vocations the law either dared not, or could not interfere; and on one occasion, in the reign of Jehangir, we read of a caravan having to stay six weeks at Mathurâ, before it was thought strong enough to proceed to Delhi, no smaller number than 500 or 600 men being deemed adequate to en
As might be inferred from the above sketch, the country possesses no relics of hoary antiquity. Excluding for the present any reference to the four large towns, Mathura, Brindâ ban, Gobardhan and Mahâban, the earliest buildings are probably the three Sarais, along the line of the Imperial road from Agra to Delhi; at Chaumu hâ, Ch hâtâ, and Kosi. These are generally ascribed by local tradition to Shirshâh, whose reign extended from 1540 to 1545 A.D.: though it is also said that the one at Kosi was built by Itibar Khân, and that at Chh&tâ by Abd-ul-Majid, better known by his honorary title of Asaf Khân. He was first Humayun's Diwân and subsequently Governor of Delhi under Akbar. The style of architecture is in exact conformity with that of similar buildings known to have been erected in Akbar's reign, such for example as the Fort at Agra; and, on other
