Page:Report of a Tour Through the Bengal Provinces of Patna, Gaya, Mongir and Bhagalpur; The Santal Parganas, Manbhum, Singhbhum and Birbhum; Bankura, Raniganj, Bardwan and Hughli in 1872-73.djvu/208

BURÁM.

Twelve miles west by a little north from Puralya, on the right bank of the Kasai or Kansai river, is the small village and the ruins of Burám. The ruins are on a knoll at the edge of the river; approaching them after crossing the river from the north, the first ruin is a low mound; on this lies a round-ended flat slab with inscribed; the characters may belong to the ninth or tenth century; the mound is evidently the site of a temple of brick, faced with stone; there are a few other low small mounds of no special interest.

Of the remains that still stand more or less dilapidated, the first, beginning from the south end, is a large flat-topped temple of brick; it faces east, and stands on a mound 11 or 12 feet high, which evidently formed the basement on which the temple stood; the bricks are 18" × 12" × 2⁴⁄₅ inches and 9" × 12" × 2⁴⁄₅ inches, set close without mortar, but with mud cement; a section and other measurements, &c., are given in plate.

The ornamentation, externally, consists of tiers and rows of niches cut on the face and sides and back walls of the tower. As at Buddha Gáyá, there is not, and does not appear to have been, any plaster coating to the temple, as the bricks are all carefully cut and smoothed; the temple faces east; the entrance is of the usual pattern, a rectangle, surmounted by a tall triangular opening of overlapping courses of bricks; the temple consists, and appears to have always consisted, of no more than a single cell, 11 feet 8 inches square; there is consequently no division of the entrance opening into a door proper and an illuminating window; the figure within is a four-armed female seated on a lion, which, therefore, I assume to represent Parvati.

Near this temple lie the ruins of a stone temple; this was built of stone cut carefully and set without mortar throughout; the stone used was a fine close-grained sandstone; the mouldings are plain, but not bold.

Close to it is the top lintel of an entrance, with a groove in its under-face, extending almost the whole length of the stone; the entrance to which it belonged must have been 3 feet 3 inches wide; there is space for a figure of the object of worship in the centre of the architrave, but the figure, if any existed, has long ago been rubbed away under the treatment of laborers sharpening their field implements;