Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c8.s2.1

c8.s2.1

Pāṭṇā, ten miles to the south-west of Chālisgaon in Khāndesh, is the site of a deserted town, now overgrown with jungle, where, scattered among the ruins, are the remains of several old temples. The range of the Sātmāla hills, running east and west and separating Khāndesh from the Nizām's territory, is at this point recessed, forming a horse-shoe-shaped valley. The hills at the entrance of the valley are about a mile apart, while the glen between them runs back about a mile and a half. At the upper end of the valley, above the temple of Āi Bhavānī on the eastern side, a rough mountain path winds up the lonely ravine—the Pitalkhorā or "Brazen Glen"—at the top of which, in the wild solitude of the rocks, is a group of very old Buddhist caves. A stream, fed by the innumerable rivulets that trickle down the sides of the hills around, winds down the Pāṭṇā valley, in one of its curves sweeping by the shrine of Āi Bhavānī, where there is still kept up a yearly *jatrā* or fair. The stream inclines, throughout its meanderings, towards the eastern side of the valley leaving a considerable area between it and the western cliffs, in which, high up above, are the cave-temples known as Nāgārjuna's Kotri, Sītā's Nhānī, and the Śrinagar Chāurī, a space ample enough for the old town of Pāṭṇā, whose ruins now occupy the ground. The whole of the valley is thickly wooded, and, being quite uninhabited, save by the owl and the jackal, the pig and the panther with an occasional tiger, it is, between the lights, quite an eerie and lonely place to camp in. The ruins of the old town are thickly scattered about, and, with difficulty, maintain their ground against the jungle which, where unable to displace them, just grows over and casts its creeper entanglements firmly around their mouldering walls. (Plates XXV—XXXII.)