SCULPTURED CEILINGS OF TEMPLE AT CHANDRAVATI.
To face page 1788.
The inscription next in point of antiquity was from the Jain temple in the modern town. It was dated the 3rd of Jeth, S. 1103 (A.D. 1047), but recorded only the name of a visitor to the shrine.
Near the dam of the Or-sagar, there was a vast number of funeral memorials, termed Nisia,[[21]] of the Jain priesthood. One is dated “the 3rd of Magh, S. 1066 (A.D. 1010), on which day Srimant Deo, Chela, or disciple, of Acharya Srimana Dewa, left this world.” The bust of the Acharya, or doctor, is in a studious posture, the book lying open upon the Thuni or cross, which forms a reading-desk, often the only sign of the nisia to mark a Jain place of sepulture.
The adjoining one contained the name of Devindra Acharya; the date S. 1180.
Another was of “Kumar-deo, the Panda or priest of the race of Kumad Chandra Acharya, who finished his career on Thursday (guruwar) the Mul nakshatra[[22]] of S. 1289.”
There are many others, but as, like these, they contained no historical data, they were not transcribed [736].
Nārāyanpur, December 13, eleven miles.—Marched at daybreak, and about a coss north of the city ascended the natural boundary of Haraoti and Malwa; at the point of ascent was Gundor, formerly in the appanage of the Ghatirao (‘lord of the pass’), one of the legendary heroes of past days; and half a coss further was the point of descent into the Antri, or ‘valley,’ through which our course lay due north. In front, to the north-west, Gagraun, on the opposite range, was just visible through the gloom; while the yet more ancient Mhau,[[23]] the first capital of the Khichis, was pointed out five coss to the eastward. I felt most anxious to visit this city, celebrated in the traditions of Central India, and containing in itself and all around much that was worthy of notice. But time pressed; so we continued our route over the path trodden by the army of Alau-d-din when he besieged Achaldas in Gagraun.[[24]] The valley was full three miles wide, the soil fertile, and the scenery highly picturesque. The forest on each side echoed with the screams of the peacock, the calls of the partridge, and the note of the jungle-cock, who was crowing his matins as the sun gladdened his retreat. It was this Antri, or valley, that the regent selected for his Chhaoni, or ‘fixed camp,’ where he has resided for the last thirty years. It had at length attained the importance of a town, having spacious streets and well-built houses, and the materials for a circumvallation were rapidly accumulating: but there is little chance of his living to see it finished. The site is admirably chosen, upon the banks of the Amjar, and midway between the castle of Gagraun and Jhalrapatan. A short distance to the west of the regent’s camp is the Pindari-ki-chhaoni, where the sons of Karim Khan, the chief leader of those hordes, resided; for in these days of strife the old regent would have allied himself with Satan, if he had led a horde of plunderers. I was greatly amused to see in this camp, also assuming a permanent shape, the commencement of an Idgah, or ‘place of prayer’; for the villains, while they robbed and murdered even defenceless women, prayed five times a day!
We crossed the confluent streams of the Au and Amjar, which, flowing through the plains of Malwa, have forced their way through the exterior chain into the Antri of Gagraun, pass under its western face, dividing it from the town, and then join the Kali Sind [737].
