Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c43.t1.492

v3.c43.t1.492

We continued our march from this Pass, often moistened with Rajput blood, and reached the Darra, outside of which we found the old regent encamped, and whence we issued on our tour just three weeks ago. It was by mere accident that, some distance up the valley (a continuation of that we had just quitted), we heard of some ruins, termed the Chaori of Bhim, one of the most striking remains of art I had yet met with. It is the fragment only of a quadrangular pile, of which little now remains, the materials having been used by one of the Kotah princes, in erecting a small palace to a Bhilni concubine. The columns possess great originality, and appear to [740] be the connecting link of Hindu and Egyptian architecture. Not far from the Chaori, where, according to local traditions, the Pandu Bhim celebrated his nuptials, are two columns, standing without relation to any other edifice; but in the lapse of ages the fragments appertaining to them have been covered with earth or jungle. At every step we found Jujhars, or funeral stones; and as this ‘Pass of Mukund’ must, as the chief outlet between the Deccan and northern India, have been a celebrated spot, it is not unlikely that in remote ages some city was built within its natural ramparts. Throughout this town, we found many traces of the beneficent but simple legislation of the Hara princes; and when the regent set up his pillar, prohibiting chiefly his own violence, he had abundant formulas to appeal to. We have already alluded to this circumstance in the sketch of his biography, and we may here insert a free translation of the ordinance we found engraved in the Pass, and which is recorded throughout Haraoti.