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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
So thinking the king returned, and at once ordered the minister to be released and to be brought before him. He came and stood before his lord accordingly, and the king explained to him all about the lion and how his words had proved to be true so far. "But how can my sending you to jail be for the best ?" said the king.
Replied the minister, "My most noble lord! Had it not been for my imprisonment in the
RAMBLES AMONG RUINS IN CENTRAL INDIA.
Thirty or forty miles north of the river Narmada, in Central India, there lies a tract, enclosed east and west by the rivers Binâ and Parbati and south by the Vindhyan scarp, in which there are many remarkable Buddhist, Jain, and Brahmaṇical ruins. They consist of topes, temples, tanks, monasteries, and columns. This district was formerly part of Gondwana. A low range of rocky hills divides it from the Serôj plateau on the north.
[DECEMBER, 1888.
jail I would have accompanied you to the forest and fallen a prey to the lion. After rejecting you for being deformed he would have taken me away for his feast. So I should have died. Therefore even my having lived in the jail for a day was for the best."
MISCELLANEA.
Through its very centre, towards the north, flows the sacred river Bêtwa, rising among the upland valleys of the range. Its upper course is tortuous; and the rocky hills round which it sweeps, with the broad vales and narrow glens over which the holy stream gently glides or through which it swiftly rushes, were for many hundred years before and subsequent to the commencement of the Christian era a great centre of religion and of wealth. Dotted over mountain and plain the ruins of remarkable works of art and utility testify even now to the religious zeal and mercantile activity of the past.
The oldest and most famed of these is the Budhist tope upon the Sanchi Hill, overlooking the Bêtwa. Probably it formed the earliest centre of attraction, which for so long drew crowds of devotees and also a multitude of all classes to a district which, if it was as wild then as now, must have been singularly uninviting for human settlement. It is not my purpose in this paper to attempt a description of this famous fane, or of those of a like nature which cluster around it, or indeed to give any detailed archæological description; but simply to sketch what I have seen of the lesser known remains of towns, temples, and tanks, still lying for the most part in the jungle and out of the beaten track of travellers, but which are about to be rendered accessible by the Indian Midland Railway.
The king was extremely pleased with the reply and received his minister into still greater confidence.
At a very early period of this settlement, perhaps a few centuries before our era, the city of Bêsnagar must have been founded. Its site was about two miles from the Sâñchi hill. Greek and Buddhist coins, ploughed up every rains, testify to its antiquity. Moreover, its remarkable position and selected means of defence, stamp it to have been contemporary with the ancient cities of Eran, Dhâr, and Sihor, similarly situated and defended. It was placed between the rivers Bês and Bêtwa, above their point of junction, within a triangle formed by a curve of the latter river and completed by an artificial communication between the two rivers. The earth excavated was formed into a high rampart, topped with brick; and thus, surrounded by deep rivers and high banks, good defence and an ample supply of pure water were assured. This circumscribed area of not more than two square miles must have been subsequently much extended. There are ruins across both the Bêtwâ and the Bês, extending to the modern Bhêlsâ on the east, to the Udigiri hills on the west, and to the spot where General Sir A. Cunningham dug up the kalpa-druma and the statue of Mâyâdêvi on the north. A great, rich and populous city must have stood here for centuries, perchance for a thousand years,-a focus of civilization and a centre of wealth.
The sculptured kalpa-druma (wishing-tree) and the statue of Mayadevi (the mother of Buddha), which adorned columns in this city, are now in the Calcutta Museum. But the interesting sculptured ancient caves of the Udigiri hill, still untouched by the hand of time, are full of interest. Scattered around are remnants of capitals and columns enough to enrich a museum, and buried beneath mounds probably lie interesting, and perhaps invaluable, stone records of the ruined city and temples.
From the above account it will be understood that Bêsnagar was built between two rivers. But the sister city of Erap, fifty miles to the north-east,
