The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c16.s2.29.4

v2.c16.s2.29.4

Eel Rājā was contemporary with SHAH MOMIN ARIF who lived 900 years ago.' "The Brahman on the other hand says—that the excavations of Ellora are 7894 years old, formed by EELOO Rājā, the son of PESHPONT OF *Ellichpore*, when 3000 years of the DVĀPAR YUG were accomplished. EELOO Rājā's body was afflicted with maggots, and in quest of cure he came to the purifying water named SEWALYE, or as it is commonly called SEWALLA, that had been curtailed by Viṣṇu to the size of a cow's hoof. He built a Kuṇḍ for it and bathing therein was purified.' (*Asiatic Researches*, V1, 385). "In these conflicting stories we can trace the selfsame tradition of ILA exteracted by Wilson from the Mackenzie records. "It would be well worth while to re-examine the particular manuscript (the number of which is not, however, mentioned), to ascertain what further is said of him, and whether it be possible to consider him in the light of a real monarch of *Deogiri*; whose son could by possibility have imitated his father's propensity for forming impregnable mountain fortresses in the rocks of *Kaliṅga*: or whether the name is not rather AILA then ILA, which will make the same personage at both places, mythological or real, the originator of the excavations. Should an actual monarch, named after this demigod, have ruled in central India in the fourth century before Christ, his synonyme PURUṚAVAS would bring him satisfactorily into the conditions required for the Grecian Porus!" (*Journal, As. Soc.*, VI, pp.