Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c43.t1.511

v3.c43.t1.511

The modern castle of Bijolia is constructed entirely out of the ruins of the old shrines of Morakara, and gods and demons are huddled promiscuously together. This is very common, as we have repeatedly noticed; nor can anything better evince that the Hindu attaches no abstract virtue to the material object or idol, but regards it merely as a type of some power or quality which he wishes to propitiate. On the desecration of the receptacle, the idol becomes again, in his estimation, a mere stone, and is used as such without scruple. All around, for several miles, are seen the wrecks of past days. At Darauli, about four miles south, is an inscription dated S. 900 (A.D. 844), but it is unimportant; and again, at Telsua, two miles farther south, are four mandirs, a kund, and a toran, or triumphal arch, but no inscription. At Jaraula, about six miles distant, there are no less than seven mandirs and a kund—a mere heap of ruins. At Ambaghati, one of the passes of descent from the table-land into the plain, there are the remains of an ancient castle and a shrine, and I have the names of four or five other places, all within five miles of Bijolia, each having two and three temples in ruins. Tradition does not name the destroyer, but as it evidently was not Time, we may, without hesitation, divide the opprobrium between those great iconoclasts, the Ghori king Ala and the Mogul Aurangzeb, the first of whom is never named without the addition of Khuni, ‘the sanguinary,’ whilst the other is known as Kalayavana, the demon-foe of Krishna.