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SEPTEMBER, 1873.]
RÅMGARH HILL.
243
ON THE ANTIQUITIES OF RÂMGARH HILL, DISTRICT OP SARGUJA.
BY V. BALL, M.A., GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. M Y duties as a Geological Surveyor have led water, and the different seasons at which our
11 me into many remote and seldom-visited visits were made, his being in the cold season, localities in Western Bengal. Few of these have and mine towards the end of March. appeared to me more curious and interesting The sandstone out of which the water gushes than the Ramgarh hill, in the district of rests upon a seam of coaly shale 4 feet 5 inches Sargaja, Chota Nagpur Division.
thick, but not of much value for burning. Previous notices of some of the antiquities of Leaving the fountain and grove, which are at the Ramgarh hill by Col. Ouseley and Col. the north-east corner of the rectangular block of Dalton, C.S.I., will be found in the Journal sandstone which forms the main 'mase of the of the Asiotic Society of Bengal.. In the paper hill, and renders it a conspicuous and easily by Col. Dalton there are some technical details recognisable object for many miles around, of the architecture.
we proceeded round by the eastern side to the On the 22nd of March 1872 my camp reach- south. The general level of the path, which ed Khûdri, a village some six or seven miles west runs for nearly three-fourths of the way round of Lakanpur, in Sargajâ, and on the following the base of the rectangular mass, maintains an morning early I started to explore the Ramgarh elevation of about 2600 feet above the sea, or of hill. Two miles south of Khadri we passed 600 below the summit of the hill. through a miserable Gond (locally Gor) hamlet 1 High up on the south-east corner, water trickles called Skontâri, soon after leaving which the path down over the vertical face of the cliff till it is became almost obliterated, and we found our caught by a ledge of rock, which doubtless serves selves on the rise to the Ramgarh hill. Proceed to redirect its course and cause its appearance ing onwards for some distance through a tangled on the north-east. After passing rather more mass of charred and smouldering branches than three-fourths of the way along this path, and logs, where the jungle had been set on the attention is arrested by a rudely cut model fire, we at last emerged on a piece of flat of a temple or memorial stone which is about ground shaded by a few mango and ebony trees, four feet high. In the lower portion of it there and bounded on the south by a wall of rock is a cavity for the reception of a tablet. But no which rises perpendicularly for several hundred vestige remains of one now, if it ever did exist. feet. At the foot of this wall an unusual lux. This object the natives call mal karn. It is on uriance of the vegetation at once attracted the right hand of the path. A few steps further, attention, -ferns, species of Ficus, and other on the left, there is a block of sandstone, which, moisture-loving plants being abundant. On if the attention were not specially drawn to it, going a little closer the cause of this became
one might pass without remarking anything apparent, as a grotto, to which there is an ascent particular about it. It is, however, of some by a few steps, opened out to view. There, from interest, being artificially hollowed, with an ena fissure in the massive bed of sandstone, a trance facing to the west. This block measures constant stream of pure water spouts forth in so externally 3 ft.5 in. by 3 ft. 8 in. by 6 ft. The enstrange a way that it is no cause for wonder trance is 1 foot 5 inches by 1 foot 4 inches, and that the natives regard the place as sacred. the internal length 8 feet 10 inches. The bottom Col. Dalton compares the fountain to the one is now somewhat filled up, but it is evident that which we are told issued from the rook at the there was room for a man to creep inside and touch of Moses.
squat down. The natives call it. Muni gofar'I found the water refreshing but not cool; the Muni's den. Close by this are the remains at the same time the temperature was not of an old wall built of uncut stones. higher than that of the air, as Col. Dalton A short distance beyond, the ascent of the great found it. This is easily explainable by the block of sandstone commences by the only pracprobable constanoy of the temperature of the ticable route : this is at the south-west corner.
• Vol. XVII. pt. i. (1848), pp. 65-68, and vol. XXXIV. pt. . (1865), pp. 23-27.
