Page:Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India Vol 5.pdf/181

Rh famous Taliacotian operation, in which the required flesh was taken from some other healthy person, and not from the patient. But the drawback to this operation was the immediate decay of the nose on the death of the person from whom the flesh had been taken. In Butler’s words they—

Would last as long a parent breech, But when the date of Nock was out Off dropped the supplemental snout.

It seems strange that there is no mention of this practice by Abul Fazl, although perhaps it may not have come into use until late in Akbar's reign after the Ain-Akbari had been completed, According to my information, it was already in existence when Akbar first visited Kangra; but Vigne was told that it was first. originated during the reign of Akbar, who was surprised to see a criminal whose nose had been cut off by his order appear with a new nose. The nose had been made by one of his own surgeons named Buddin, to whom the Emperor gave a jaghir in the Kangra district as a reward for his skill.

The famous temple of Jwala-Mukhi or the “flaming mouth” is built over a fissure at the base of a high range of hills, about 20 miles to the south-east of Kangra, from which an inflammable gas has continued to issue from time immemorial. The earliest notice of the place by name is by Shams-i- Sirlj in his account of Firoz Shah's lition against Kangra.? The place is deseribed by Abul Fazl, but without giving the name,’ The first actual account is that of Tom Coryat, as told by bim to Chaplain Terry in the reign of Jahangir: “In this province likewise there is another famous pilgrimage to a Pp. Mukhi), where out of cold springs I amongst hard rocks, are fig to be seen continued eruptions of fire before which the idolatrous people fall down and worship. Both these were seen and strictly observed by Mr, Coryat.”” / =

Early in the reign of Aurangaib JwAla-Mukhi is thus described by Thevenot :* “The devotion which the Gentiles

1 Vigne’s Knahmir, I, 140. 2 Deveon's Rdition of Sir Wt. Elliot, 111, 318.

3 Gladwin’s Ain-Akbari, 11, 110.


 * Voyage to East India, Loudon, 1655, page 87.
 * Travels, Part 111, chapter 37, ful. G2.

Vor.