Report of a Tour through the Bengal Provinces/Sitamarhi
SITAMARHI.
About 12 miles east from Punâwa and a mile and a half south of the road from Gaya to Nowâda is a curious isolated boulder standing by itself known as Sitamarhi. This boulder has been hollowed to form a chamber 15 feet 9 inches long by 11 feet 3 inches wide, the doorway being 2 feet 1 inch wide at bottom and 1 foot 11 inches wide at top, with a height of 4 feet 4 inches. The roof of the chamber consists of a semi-ellipse with its major axis vertical and the minor axis at the level of the floor; the semi-major axis is 6 feet 7 inches, being the height of the roof at the apex above the floor; details are given in the plate accompanying. The interior is highly polished, and is fully equal in this respect to the finest of the polished caves in the Barâbar and Nâgârjuni hills; the interior, however, now is of a dirty colour from the effects of smoke; portions of the flat wall at the further end opposite the doorway appear either to have escaped polish, or what is more likely, to have lost the polish by peeling off of the stone. I have described the roof as semi-elliptical, but more correctly it is formed of two curves meeting each other at so great an angle as to leave no sharp line of junction. There is at present inside the cave a miserable statue, through which a couple of sleek and insolent Brahmans obtain their livelihood. The boulder is near a small mango tope and far from any village. Tradition makes it the residence of Sita during her exile; it was here that her son Lava was born, and Kuça manufactured by the sage Valmiki; the sculpture inside representing what I strongly suspect to be Buddha with two attendants on two sides, as in the much larger and fine sculpture at Kispa, which is said to represent Sita and her two sons, although the statue is not female; a second piece of sculpture is said to be Lachman; there is besides a Devi on a lion, Pârvati no doubt; and a long wavy mark on the wall is confidently asserted to represent Hanuman's tail.
It was in the wide high tanr near this boulder that Lava and Kuça are said to have fought with Rama’s army led by his nephew.
About one mile to the east of this curious boulder is a group of bare, rocky and picturesque hills. On one of these near Rasulpura is a tomb, said to be of a local saint, Sheikh Muhammad; the building is a plain square-domed structure of unplastered brick; the building dates to a very early period if we judge from the style of the dome, which is without a neck and is surmounted by a very small top knot; the building stands within what once was a court-yard with towers at the corners. Facing the east entrance of the dargah is a lingam doing duty as a lamp post. The foundations of the building are of rubble, the bricks used are of various sizes; there is no doubt it occupies the site of some older Hindu shrine.
About 500 feet north of this is another similar but smaller hill with ruins of tombs. About 1,000 feet to north-east is another similar hill crowned with the ruins of a dargah.