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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MARCH, 1873.
out. Figure 30 is much harder, and looks more like steel than anything I have yet found.
Professor J. Oldham, LL.D., when President of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, delivered, in September 1869, a most interesting lecture on the results of my excavation on the Muribetta hill in North Kurg, and compared the cromlecbs of Kurg with the Pandu kolis in Malabar. From the description given in his suggestive notes on the subject, it would appear that the Pandu kolis of Malabar are chambers purposely excavated in the rock below the surface, generally in the laterite, which abounds in that district, and are merely covered with a mushroom-shaped rock. The cromlechs of Kurg and Maisur, however, are not excavations, but actual structures, consisting of a large flagstone of granite at the bottom, with four similar slabs (all hewn and made to fit) forming a stonecist, the superincumbent stone being a large unhewn block of granite. This block is generally found in the centre of the circle of atones, with the top just visible above the surface, or about a foot below it. The stones forming the circles are buried from 1 to 3 feet below the surface, and project above from 1 to 2 feet. In a few of the circles I have come across, no stone-cists or chambers have been found, though I have dug down to & depth of 8 feet; but remnants of vessels have been found, apparently buried without the usual stone receptacle for them. The circles on the Muribetta hill were of this description, and the miniature vessels were found buried, as far as I remember, at the foot of a large stone opposite the entrance, and the two upright slabs arched above, alluded to by Dr. Oldham, were apparently the entrance to the enclosure formed by the circles of stones, and not to any chainber. On that occasion was discovered the only metallic object yet found, consisting of a peculiar shaped disc of copper, covered with a thin plate of gold. I may here remark that the same traditions existed amongst the people here as in Kurg. Some declared that these structures had formed the residence of the pigmy race known as Pundarus ; whilst others asserted that they had been the tombs of the Pandavas, whose exile and wars with the Kauravas are so graphically described in the great Hindu epic poem of the Mahabharata.
The Kurge lay claim to their country having
been the original “Matsyadés'a," or " ráj of Virát," and point out a site near the tombs of the rájás of Kurg at Merkara as that of the palace of Viráta Rájá, in whose capital the Pandavas took refuge in the thirteenth year of their exile, as narrated in the Mahabharata. I have heard the expression in Maisur of the Kurgs being imbued with “the essence (or spirit) of the Pándus." I am aware that the districts of Dinajpura in Bengal and Gujarat in Bombay both claim the same distinction, the modern town of Dholka in the latter being declared to be on the site of Matsya Nagara or Virátapura ; but it is a strange coincidence that the rájás of Kurg have borne, even up to the time of our conquest of the province, the name of Vira Rájá. It is impossible, however, to fix the exact geographical positions of many of the localities depicted in those ancient poems, which have doubtless received embellishments at the hands of their Brahmanical compilers. In each country and in each dynasty it became of importance to trace some connection with the incidents narrated in their great poem ; and I may mention that the village of Kaivára in the Sidalaghatta taluk of the Kolár district, is here said to have been the site of the town of Yékachekra, in the vicinity of which Bhíma is said in the poem to have had his mortal combat with the Asura Baká; and local tradition asserts that the adjoining hill of Kaivára, or Rhaimangarh, as it is styled by the Muhamınadans, was thrown on the top of the giant, and that his blood oozes out to this day. It is a remarkable fact that a reddish, bituininous matter oozes ont from a fissure near the top of the hill, and flows down the side of the rock for a few days in each year,- I believe in February. Local tradition ascribes the name of Hidimba, the man-eating A'sura, to the giant buried below the hill; but this episode in the life of Bhíma occurred before the five brothers went to the city of Yékachekra, which Mr. Wheeler has shewn, in his great work on the Mahabharata, to have been the modern city of Arrah in Bengal. I trust that these remarks may not be considered out of place, but they are offered in the same spirit as led the poet Warton to remark on our own great Druidical remains of Stonehenge
Studious to trace thy wondrous origin,
We muse on many an ancient tale renowned Bowringpete, 18th July 1871. Rob. COLE.
THE ASIATIC SOCIETIES.
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, No. 180—1872. The first paper in this part is on the Buddhist and may also be regarded as a companion paper Remains of Bibär' by A. M. Broadley, and may be to those by the same author which appeared in the regarded as an amplification and continuation of his Indian Antiquary last year. Of Vrindavana he papers in vol. I. of this journal, with lengthy ex- writes, tracts from Julien's Hiwen Thsang, Beal's Fah- " At the present time there are within the limits Hian, Bigandet's Gaudama, &c.
of the municipality about a thousand temples, inThe second paper is on the Tirthas of Vrin- cluding of course inany which, strictly speaking, are davana and Gokuls' by F. S. Growbe, M. A. merely private chapels, and fifty ghata constructed
