Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 1.pdf/268

 234

the front.

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.

Attached to Rani Hansiyä's monu

ment is a smaller one in commemoration of a

faithful attendant.

Behind is an extensive gar

[AUGUST 2, 1872.

The following legend in the Harivaïsa (cap. 94) must be taken to refer to the foundation of the town, though apparently it has never

den, and in front, at the foot of the terrace, is an

hitherto

artificial lake, called the Kusum–Sarovar, 460

Among the descendants of Ikshváku, who reigned at Ayodhya, was Haryasva, who took to wife Madhumati, the daughter of the giant

feet square; the flights of stone steps on each side being broken into one central and four smaller side compartments by panelled and ar

Madhur.

been

noticed

in

that

connection.

Being expelled from the throne by

caded walls running out 60 feet into the water.

his elder brother, the king fled for refuge to the

On the north side, some progress had been made

court of his father-in-law, who received him most affectionately, and ceded him the whole of his dominions, excepting only the capital Madhu vana, which he reserved for his son Lavana.

in the erection of a chhattri for Javāhir Siâh,

when the work was interrupted by a Muhamma dan inroad and never renewed. On the same side

the ghāts of the lake are partly in ruins, and it is said were reduced to this condition, a very few years after their completion, by the Gosain Him

mat Bahádur, who carried away the materials to Brindé-ban, to be used in a house that he was building for himself there. Subsequently he es tablished an independent sovereignty over a considerable portion of Bundel-khand, and in 1803 entered into a special treaty with the Bri

Thereupon Haryasva built, on the sacred Giri vara, a new royal residence, and consolidated the kingdom of

Ánarta,

to which he subsequently

annexed the country of Arápa, or as it is other wise and preferably read, Anūpa. The third in descent from Yadu, the son and successor of Hary asva, was Bhima, in whose reign Rāma, the then sovereign of Ayodhya, commissioned Satrughna to destroy Lavana's fort of Madhuvana, and erect

tish Government.

in its stead the town of Mathurá.

Other sacred spots in the town of Gobardhan are the temple of Chakrešvar Mahádeva, and

departure of its founder,

four ponds called respectively Go-rochan, Dharm rochan, Páp-mochan and Rin-mochan. But these latter, even in the rains, are mere puddles,

session of his descendants down to Vasudeva.

and all the rest of the year are quite dry ; while

After the

Mathurá was an

nexed by Bhima, and continued in the pos The most important lines in the text run thus:

Haryašvascha mahátejã divye Girivarottame Nivesayá mása puram väsartham amaropamah

the former, in spite of its sanctity, is as mean a little building as it is possible to

Anartam náma tadrashtram suráshtram Go

conceive.

Achirenaiva

The break in the hill, traversed by the road from Mathurá to Dig, is called the Dán Ghāt,

pádyata Antipa-vishayam

and is supposed to be the spot where Krishna

lay in watch to intercept the Gopis and levy a toll (dān) on the milk they were bringing into the town. A Brähman still sits at the receipt of custom, and extracts a copper coin or two from the passers-by. On the ridge over looking the Ghát stands the temple of Dán

dhanāyutam kálena

sampiddham pratya

chaiva

vela

vana-vibhui

shitam.

From the occurrence of the words Giri-vara

been repeatedly solicited by the Bharatpur Réjà

and Godhana, and the declared proximity to Mathurá, it is clear that the capital of Haryasva must have been situate on the Giri-ráj of Gobar dhan ; and it is probable that the country of Anūpa was to some extent identical with the more modern Braj. Anūpa is once mentioned, in an earlier canto of the poem, as having been bas towed by king Prithu on the bard Sūta. The

to cede him Gobardhan in exchange for other

name Ánarta occurs also in canto X, where it is

territory of equal value. It contains so many memorials of his ancestors that the request is a very natural one for him to make, and it must

son of

Ráe.

Of late years the paramount power has been

be admitted that the Bharatpur frontier stands

greatly in need of rectification. It would, how ever, be most impolitic for the Government to make the desired concession, and thereby lose all control over a place so important both from its position and its associations as Gobardhan.

stated to have been settled by king Reva, the

Šaryāti, who made

Kusasthali its capital.

In the Rāmāyana IV. 43, it is described as a western region on the sea-coast, or at all events in that direction, and has therefore been identi fied with Gujarāt. Thus there would seem to have been an intimate connection between Guja rāt and Mathurá, long anterior to Krishna's foundation of Dwóraká.