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 124 THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY. [April, 1873. messenger (which has very little to do with the story), they are probably interpolations. Ramkrisiina G. Bhandarkar. SERPENT-WORSHIP. Sir,—In his Essay on “ Vasta-yaga and its bearing upon Serpent and Tree Worship in India,” published in tho Journal of tho Bengal Asiatic Society (Part I. No. 3—1870), Babu Fratap Chan¬ dra Ghosha, B.A., asserted that no temple has ever been raised by Aryans for the sole worship of the Serpent in India, though ^ie Hindus enter¬ tain a kind of respect for the allegorical characters Anania and Vasuki. Now in Prayag (Allahabad) an ancient temple still stands dedicated solely to the worship of the Ndga Vasuki. Perhaps it is tbe only one. of its kind in the N. W. Provinces, for I have have seen none elsewhere, not even in Benares. It is called by natives Baja Vasuk or Dussdaumddh. The 8pot is associated with several legendary traditions, one of which is that Brahma, in ages gone by, performed there the sacrifice of a thousand horses,—hence its sacredness. Tho temple is beautifully situated amidst a grove of trees, overlooking tho Ganges, which flows just under it. The scenery is charming. It is a massive building on an elevated terrace, and looks quite new, for we learn that a hundred years ago it was all repaired, and the pakka stone ghat under it constructed by the millionaire of Daraganj, a detached village of Allahabad lying on the bank of the river. The imago of the Naga Yasuki is carved out of a black stone set in the front wall of the temple, and is about a foot and a half high. It is neatly sculptured as a hooded snake standing erect when enraged. There are other idols of less note. A large fair is held here on Ndgapanchami, to which many of the Hindus from Allahabad and neighbouring villages come, to secure the double merit of bathing in the sacred stream and wor¬ shipping the serpent-god on the auspicious occasion. Tho temple is resorted to by every pilgrim to Praydg, with whom it is a belief that the merit of bathing in the sacred confluence of Gaiig& and Jamun& is not complete until he visits the temple of the king of Serpents. Pilgrims to other sacred places in India take Ganges water from this place only, as it is considered purer than elsewhere in Praydg. Kasixath. Street, Allahabad, 2nd December 1872. NOTE ON DRAVIDIAN NUMERALS. I have read with much interest the remark on the note concerning ancient Dravidian numerals {Ind. Ant. II. 97). It corroborates the view that the Dravidian numerals, at least up to 10, are original and not taken from the Sanskrit, a view which, regarding 5 and 10, had been called in question by a well-known scholar. How clearly the Dravidians are marked out by their numerals ! That the I Pengu Porjas, Tagara l’orjas, and Durwa Gonds use Uriya words for some of the lower numbers is curious indeed, and the cause of their doing so deserves thorough inquiry. Is there any unsur- mountable objection to the supposition that the Dravidian numbers known to be used by them are the remnant of a complete set ? or that by a more intimate intercourse with the tribes the original scries may still be found to exist among them ? It may have been necessary for the tribes to adopt some numbers from their neighbours, who by way of intercourse learned to know and use a few of i theirs, but did not care to acquire and use all. ! Concerning the Kbis and Selliya Porjas, I should like to know whether their having borroiccd some Telugu words is a fully established fact ? The so- called Telugu words may be as original with them as with the Telugus, and prove that the two tribes once lived in a more favourable position in union with their kinsmen, the Telugus, and also with the other large Dravidian tribes. It is interest¬ ing to observe that the expression for “ one” in Kbi is orrote, in Togara Porja—vakat, in Telugu— okati, the Kbi being next to the root. The tom (another form of om, the first part of “ nine” in Kbi aud Telugu) does not appear in other dialects before 19. With reference to Dravidian derivations, I take the liberty to state tho Dravidian rule that a noun may be formed by simply lengthening the verbal root; the inverse process would be against the derivation of milu, ndlku (Kbi ndliir, Durwa Gond ndlu, Togara Porja—milu, Telugu—ndlugu, ndlgu). Tho root nal, to be lovely, is very common with the Southern Dravidians ; a root akin to it is jmr, to be fragrant. Both roots have been adopted by the Aryas, as a study of the words beginning with their letters in a Sanskrit Dictionary will show. (Some of those words are to be referred to the Dravidian root nad, to be erect, to be planted; d = L = l.) F. Kittel. Merkara, 2bth March 1873. THE GUJARAT LION. It is erroneous to suppose that the K&thiawad (Gujarat) Lion is maneless, although in the speci¬ mens I have seen the mane has been consider¬ ably shorter and of lighter colour than that of the African species. One that I shot, supposed to have been eight years old from its containing that
 * spirit of the language. On this rule rests the