Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/263

 RAE 255 masonry of very inferior workmanship; a fine gateway to the east és also of modem date, and largely composed of carved slabs square and column shaped, which formed a portion of some more ancient building. The carvings are partly buried in the brickwork, and architraves have been worked in upside down. It would appear that this fort consists really of two of those great Buddhist vihdrs on mounds which are still found at Sánchi, Amritápur, and on the Hazára frontier. These mounds were generally circular, and bad a perpendicular casing of masonry which rose in terraces, while the top was shaped into a solid dome. They were accessible by stairs, sup- plied with balustrades, and used for the open, air ceremonies of the Bud- dhist faith, Apparently two of these adjoined as was often the case; the original height was probably not less than 150 feet, a very mediocre elevation for these edifices. After the peaceful Buddhist period witnessed by Hwen Thsang expired, some military leader, Rája Dál or his ancestor, seeing the advantage of the position connected the two mounds, probably lowering their height and forming the whole into a vast plateau with a hollow in the centre, which was not filled up to the original level. This of course is mere conjecture; what seems certain is that the entire structure is an artificial one; the floods have laid low the very foundation, and at a depth of 60 feet from the surface, bricks and pottery pared away by the river, attest that the entire mass has been placed there by the hand of man. If so, this huge mound would have served no known purpose but that for which the Buddhist raised his tope, while the terraces, the brick plinth, and wall, the ancient carving, and numerous stone pillars, lintels, and balustrades, of types well known in Buddhist architecture, attest the same fact. This mound, with its tottering pavilious and crumbling battlements, is perhaps the most picturesque object on the banks of the Ganges in Oudh. Nor is it without interest from a military point of view. The deep stream of the Ganges, the only navigable branch, flows under the overhanging battlement from which yearly it cuts a portion away. In the face of the cliff so formed are seen walls, floors, arches, and vaults, strangely carved blocks of stone protrude themselves, here and there appear larye earthen jars, the latter probably used for some funeral purpose-all seem thrown together in one chaotic compost. These fragments of the ancient buildings seen in vertical section are embedded in the clay, and present a strange medley of relics of the past; each year some structure probably 2,000 years old is unearthed by the river, is seen for a few months by the boatmen whose vessels pass underneath, and with the floods of the next moonsoon is again swept away or tumbles into the torrent. RAE BARELI Pargana-Tahsil RAE BARELI--District RAE BARELI.--- This large pargana lies on both sides of the river Sai ; it is bounded on the south by Dalman, on the east by Salon and Rokha Jáis. fi ye miles from north to south, and twenty-one from east to west. Its area It is twenty-