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APRIL, 1879.]
now cover the ancient sites. One of the chief points of interest in the city is the ruins of the palace, or Rang Mahal, supposed to have been built by Ajaya Pål, in whom General Cunningham recognises the Tomar Prince Jaya Pâl, conquered by Mahmud of Ghazni. The palace is placed on the kankar bed, here almost deserving of the name of a hill, and which as the only rising ground to be met with for a great distance in the flat plain of the Ganges, evidently suggested Kanauj as a site for a citadel and a city. The blocks of kankar quarried for the construction of the town and the improvement of the defences of the fort are to be found all over Kanauj and its neighbourhood, where they were apparently freely used in earlier times in the absence of finer stone, not only for foundations but also for the superstructures of the temples and buildings. Many pillars and capitals and panels of block kankar are to be seen, on which figures have been carved, and considering the roughness of material, the execution of some of these was fairly good. These seem to have been used at an early period before sandstone, which had to be brought from a great distance, was available. Later on, kankar blocks appear to have been used for foundations and walls; whilst for the finer carvings, of which numerous fragments are to be seen, sandstone was employed. The other buildings, the Jâma Masjid and the Makhdûm Jahaniya, are Muhammadan structures raised with the masonry of the Jain, Buddhist, and Hindu buildings which the Muhammadans found ready to hand, and of which they readily availed themselves.
ARCHEOLOGICAL NOTES.
Not only has Kanauj itself been stripped of nearly every vestige of the splendour of its former temples, but the whole of the country for many miles round would seem to have been denuded of the sandstone blocks imported by the Buddhists and Hindus, and laid under contribution for the Muhammadan masjids and serais.
It is not my intention to attempt a description of these Muhammadan buildings which are noticed by General Cunningham in his account of Kanauj, published in Vol. I. Archeological Survey Reports, already mentioned, and with which every visitor to the old city should provide himself, and to which reference is also made
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by Mr. Fergusson in his Indian and Eastern Architecture, p. 525. Those, however, who have seen the same re-arrangement of Buddhist and Jaina remains which the Sharki kings made at Jaunpur will be disappointed with the Muhammadan buildings atKanauj which certainly cannot approach those of Jaunpur in size and grandeur. This is doubtless to be accounted for by the fact that at Kanauj, situated at a much greater distance from stone quarries than Jaunpur, the material to hand was comparatively scanty.
What interested us most were the mounds covered with fragments of pottery and brick with which the city is surrounded, and on which at the time of our arrival considerable activity was to be noticed. It at first suggested itself that the Archæological Survey were at work here, and that the excavations were being conducted under the orders of some one of General Cunningham's staff. This view, however, turned out to be incorrect, and we ascertained that the large mound to the south of the Serai on which the labourers were at work, was being opened by the Pathân proprietor for the supply of stone ballast to the state railway which is now under course of construction between Cawnpore and Fatehgarh.
Sandstone broken into pieces of about 2 inches long makes the very best ballast for railway purposes. In this vast alluvial tract no stone save kankar is to be met with, save at the distant and well known points which for centuries have provided the quarries for all creeds in the erection of their temples and other buildings. But the khéras or mounds, the ruined sites of villages and temples, and pits common throughout the country side are known to contain blocks of stone and fragments of stone as well as brick. Save to those who lived in the immediate neighbourhood, and who required building materials, these mounds were of little use, and have for centuries remained undisturbed. The contracts for ballasting the railway, however, have given these khéras a new importance, and they are now being opened out in all directions. In some places blocks of stone which either escaped the attention or were hardly worth notice of the Muhammadan builders, have been unearthed, with them too
1 See Cunningham's Archaeological Reports vol. I., p. 286.
