Report of a Tour through the Bengal Provinces/Budhhpur

by Joseph David Freedone Melik Beglar

BUDHHPUR.

Budhhpur is a small village on the left bank of the Kasai river, opposite Madhuárdi and a little below Bangrám, about seven miles south of Pákbirrá; here are numerous ancient remains, the principal of which is a large temple, with its full complement of mandapas, &c., but without the original sanctum, in place of which a modern brick and plaster erection enshrines the object of worship, a huge lingam. The temple is placed on a high plinth, on the topmost point of a low hillock; the temple forms the chief of a group of four subordinate temples, at the four corners, of which two still exist in a ruined condition; of the other two, the foundations alone remain; the whole was enclosed by a low wall, ornamented with projecting pilasters, cornice and footings.

In plan, the temple resembles other temples of the kind, with some petty variations, the principal of which is that at the two sides of the entrance into the antarala are two recesses, like the recesses at the sides of the westernmost temple at Barâkar. The windows in the projecting ends of the transept are closed by plain square-holed lattices cut in the same sandstone of which the temple is built; the windows being projecting, the three open sides of each are thus closed. The entrance into the antarala is similar to the entrance into the temple at Buddha Gáyá, being formed of overlapping courses of stones. The ornamentation externally consists of lines of mouldings of a plain kind, sparingly used; the mouldings resemble those of the temples at Barâkar. The pinnacle that surmounted the original tower roof of the sanctum lies neglected on the ground; it is an urn-shaped vessel, supported by four cobras with expanded hoods and forked tongues, and is graceful in outline and design; there can, I believe, be no doubt that it was, as it now is, a Saivic temple.

Close to it, are the remains of no less than five other temples, all smaller, and none standing. Besides the stones belonging to the temples, there are numerous other slabs sculptured on one face standing and lying about; my guide said they were tombstones, whereat the ministering Brahmans of the temple became very indignant; but there can be no doubt, notwithstanding the head priest’s anger, that the stones referred to are sati pillars; none are inscribed, but all are more or less sculptured; the general subjects appear to be a man drawing a bow, sometimes on horseback, but oftener on foot, showing that the husbands of those in whose memories these pillars stand were warriors slain in battle; most of them have animals also sculptured in the topmost compartment.

The lingam in the temple is known as Buddheswar; the people of the place consider it so holy and so well known, as to compare it with the Gadadhar of Gáyá. Gadadhar they say at Gáyá and Buddheswar at Budhhpur are both equally holy and equally well known.

The material of the temples is a tolerably good sandstone, cut to shape and set plain without any cement.

In the village there are a few sati pillars; two of them were inscribed, but the weather has not left the writing legible,

and what the weather spared of one appears to have been destroyed purposely by the chisel. I give the inscription in the margin: on the second one, the only word legible is Yuva-râja, in the second, which is also the last line; the first line is illegible.

There can be no doubt that Pákbirrá or Ponchá was once a place of great importance. The temples at Pákbirrá appear to have been all Buddhist and Jain, but there is a fair sprinkling of Brahmanical ones in the vicinity. Judging from the sculpture, the older temples cannot probably date earlier than the twelfth or the thirteenth century, and may be somewhat later; while, the more recent ones cannot go beyond the period of Akbar’s General, Mân Singh.