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 by four chimneys at the corners, from which the flaming gases used to rise when the temple was illumined in times gone by. In the middle of the roof is a square cupola, from whose east- ern side there projects, like a flag, a three-pronged fork that resembles the trisula, or trident, of the Indian god Siva.

High over the archway on the eastward front is a double oblong tablet, three and a half feet high by two broad, the upper section of which shows a swastika emblem and a sun, four flowers, and several nondescript figures.^ The lower sec- tion is devoted to an inscription in nine lines in the Nagari character of India, beginning Sati Sri G-anesdya namah^ 'In verity. Homage to the Honored Ganesa ' — the common invo- cation, in Sanskrit writings, to the divinity who removes obstacles. The inscription continues, apparently in the Marwar dialect of the Panjab,^ stating that the shrine was built for Jvala-ji (the same as the flame-faced goddess Jvala-mukhi, of Kangra in the Panjab),^ and quoting a Sanskrit couplet on the merits of a pilgrimage and pious works. It concludes with the date of the Vikramaditya era, ' Samvat 1873 '( = 1816 a.d.).* As

1 These figures may represent a * There is some uncertainty in re- trisula, and possibly a cy^a%a-bell over or 7. I have since found in Eichwald Sitrisula. This is the view of Dr. Gray, {Beise auf dem Caspischen Meere, 1. Dr. Abbott, and myself. The exact 217, Stuttgart, 1834) that in 1825 (or measurements of the tablets in meters 1826) he saw and talked with the priest are : 1 m. 7 cm. high by 59 cm. broad, who, he says, had composed the inscrip- the upper section being 37 cm. in tion. So far as Eichwald could under- height, the lower 75 cm. in height. stand, the name of this recluse was

2 Such is the opinion of Pandit D. ' Atteit Kanzenger,' from the city of Kosambi, of Poona, India, to whom, 'Kotessur' (Kot Isa Shah, [Isvara ?] in as to Professor Lanman, Dr. Gray, the Panjab, N. India) ; that the temple and especially Dr. J. E. Abbott, I am had been erected ' 16 ' years previously, indebted for suggestions and help in and the inscription on it began 'Ssri connection with the decipherment. Gnass '(i.e. Sri Ganemya), mentioning

8 See Stewart (and Gust), The the name of the Indian ruler ' Bikker

Hindu Fire Temple at Baku, in Journ. Mandit ' (i.e. Vikramaditya) and like-

Boy. As. Soc. 1897, p. 311-318. Sev- wise his own name. I cannot find the

eral references to jvhlamukhi in San- priest's name on the tablet, but Eich-

skrit literature will be found in Boht- wald acknowledges the difficulty in

lingk and Roth, Skt. Wb. 3. 171-172. understanding what he said.

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