________________ The Archaeological Personality of Vaisali 453 west of Raja Vitala ka Garb, and there is an island in the eastern part of the lake. The island has a Siva temple possessing numerous ancient idolo. At last Cunningham mentions that the Asoka pillar, about 18' bigb from the ground level, was in the courtyard of the house of a mendicant. The land around the pillar was excavated to a depth of 14', but even then great archaeologist could not be able to reach its end. Since the sub-soil water appeared, the excavator could not dig further deep. Cunningham could be able to see an inscription in shell-character on the pillar below 14' deep from the ground level. The radius of the pillar measured 38.7" at the top and 44.2" near the water level. It was reported to Cunpiogham by the local people that a certain European gentleman had also dug around the Asokan pillar, but he too did not reach its end. Further, he was reported that a medical doctor of Muzaffarpur had done some operations near the ruined stupa just to the north of the Asokan pillar, and he too could not find any object worth mentioning. Many visitors to the site have inscribed their names on this pillar. Of such names, the earliest are "G. H Barlow, 1780" and "Reuben Burrow, 1792". II. T. Bloch's Excavations in 1903-04 The next archaeologist, who carried on archaeological activities at Vaisali in 1903-4, was T. Bloch, Superintendent, Archaeological Survey of India, then posted at the Patna Circle. He surveyed an area of 24 square miles of Vaisali and selected Raja Vitala ka Gath for archeological excavations with a view to ascertaining the antiquity of the site. Bloch laid out as many as eight trenches and found the brick remains at a depth of five to ten feet from the ground level. He considered those brick remains to be Guptan, because numerous terracotta seals and sealings bearing inscriptions in the Gupta Brahmi script were unearthed from that level. From the sealing strata of the brick remains were exposed the building remains belonging to the later period. This level yielded also a coin belonging to Hussain Shah of Jaunpur. The excavations of Bloch revealed that the brick buildings had rooms of different dimensions, viz., 23' x 15', 14' X 8', '10' X 8' etc. He came across a 4' wide brick platform made of one course of bricks, and all around it a row of vertical bricks was fixed up. The bricks used in the buildings measured 161" x 10" x 2". The excavator met with a clear siga of a 3' wide door. Of the ring-wells, traced out by Bloch, each had a 1. Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report for 1903-04 (Calcutta, 1906).
