Indian Antiquary Vol 05

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 10

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
patterns, very like the stone lattice-work of the windows in many modern temples. This transept is the shrine of a village goddess, who has, the villagers say, no name (which is probably untrue), and is powerful to cure the itch,-not an ncommon disease among her votaries. Their gestures in describing her virtues were equally appropriate and amusing.
There are several other temples in this village, apparently of great age, but of no beauty; one of Mahadeva formerly stood upon a mound west of the village, which may possibly be a barrow, but I had no time to open it. There are still lying there a large linga and a Nandi, or bull, which the villagers neglect, "because," they say, "the divinity is gone out of them." This village has a much cherished custom, which is that upon the Akshatritya, or third day of the waxing half of the month Vaisakh, which fell in 1875 on the 8th of April, the little boys go out and engage the youngsters of the village of Samvatsar, across the Ganga, with slings and stones. If this be not observed, rain will not fall, they say, in the ensuing season; or if it does, it will fall under such a nakshatra as to engender multitudes of field rats, who eat up the crop, and this is called 'rats' rain' (undiranchi pání). If, however, the stone fight be waged with due spirit, it is followed by plentiful manjaryanchi páni,' i.e. rain falling at an astronomical conjuncture favourable to the development of cats, and a plentiful crop is safely harvested. Some busybody wrote and assailed this ancient and laudable practice in the native papers, and caused a reference from a paternal government, and much anxiety on the part of fussy policemen; but this year, at any rate, I have been able to secure the due observance of the Akshatritya from officious or official disturbance.
About six miles up the Gangå from Kopargâm, at Kumbhârî, there is another ancient and curious temple of Mahâdeva. The spire is gone, and the exterior, unlike that of the Kokam thân temple, is plain and massive; except at the porches the only external ornaments are niches for statues, which last have disappeared so long ago that the villagers deny that they ever existed. The stone, however, at the backs of the niches shows where they were plain enough. The spire also is utterly gone, but the interior is
[JANUARY, 1876.
as rich as that of the Kokamthân temple, and evidently of the same school. One rather curious ornament characteristic of both is a concave quarter-sphere crossed by two intersecting ribs. The wreathed snake-plant also appears on the west porch. Other ornaments are the sun and a very long and narrow lozenge or lance-head. This last has been copied upon the gateway of the funereal vadd at Hingani, where there is a little sculpture unusually good for so modern a work,-in the Dekhan at least. In this temple, as at Kokam thân, a transept takes the place of the last porch. Here, however, it is uniform with the rest of the building, and evidently part of the original design. It is occupied by Lakshm. Devi. A mori, or pipe, in the east wall of the shrine, is said to be for the purpose of admitting the earliest rays of dawn to light up the linga. It looks more like a drain, but is at a higher level than the top of the linga, and was perhaps made for the purpose of bathing it with water, or, as has sometimes been done, with milk or other fluids.
There are a few remains of two other temples of the same class at Maleg âm and Mahegâm, a couple of miles higher up the river, but in not one of them is there a single inscription, nor could I pick up any legend which might throw some light on the history of these buildings. The vil lagers have 'Hemâḍ Pant' at their tongues' end, of course. One gets rather tired of the name of him in Western India. However, at Kokamthân the kulkarni (village accountant) actually knew who the historical Hemâd Pant was; and it is just possible that where so much of the truth had lingered, there may be some in the belief that he had some connection with the school of architecture which evidently once flourished in the plains of the Gangâ.
At Ranjangâm Deshmukhâche, about ten miles south-west of Kopargâm, on the road to Sangamner, is an ancient bárao, or reservoir, which I conceive to be one alluded to by Drs. Gibson and Wilson in the Jour. Bomb. Br. R. As. Soc. vol. III. pt. ii. p. 87, under the head of structural Buddhist remains coeval with the caves. There is nothing Buddhist about this, however, and no reason to suppose it coeval with any Buddhist cave.
The plan and structure are the same as those of modern works of the same sort, abundant in the district; and the only ornament consists