The Geographical Dictionary of Ancient and Mediaeval India c5.s6.34

c5.s6.34

Hingulâ—Hinglaj (Devî-Bhâgavata, vii, 38), situated at the extremity of the range of mountains in Beluchistan called by the name of Hingulâ about twenty miles or a day's journey from the sea coast on the bank of the Aghor or Hingulâ or Hingol river (the Tomeros of Alexander's historians) near its mouth. It is one of the fifty two pîṭhas or places celebrated as the spots on which fell Sati's dissevered limbs. Sati's brahmarandhra is said to have fallen at this place (Tantra Chûḍâmaṇi). The goddess Durgâ is known here by the name of Mahâmâyâ or Koṭṭarî. According to Captain Hart, who visited the temple, it is situated in a narrow gorge the mountains on each side of which rise perpendicularly to nearly a thousand feet. It is a low mud edifice, built at one end of a natural cave of small dimensions, and contains only a tomb shaped stone, called the goddess Mâtâ or Mahâmâyâ [Account of a Journey from Karachi to Hinglaj in JASB, IX (1840), p 134, Brief History of Kalat by Major Robert Leech in JASB, (1843), p 473]. Sir T Holdich considers that the shrine had been in existence before the days of Alexander, "for the shrine is sacred to the goddess Nâna (now identified with Siva by the Hindus)" which, Assurbanipal (Sardanapalus of the Greeks) king of Assyria, removed from Susa in 645 B C to the original sanctuary at Urakh (now Warka in Mesopotamia), the goddess being Assyrian (The Greek Retreat from India in the Journal of the Society of Arts, vol XLIX, Rawlinson's *Five Great Monarchies*, IV, p. 344). The temple is said to be a low mud edifice, containing a shapeless stone situated in a cavern (*Asiatic Researches*, vol. XVII). The *ziarat* is so ancient that both Hindus and Muhammadans claim it without recognising its prehistoric origin. The goddess is known to the Muhammadans by the name of Nani (*Imperial Gazetteer*, vol. xiii, p. 142). The Aghor river is the boundary between the territory of the Jam of Beila and that of the Khan of Khelat. The name given to the stream above the peak in the Hara mountains is Hingool. It is called Aghor from the mountains to the sea. On the way from Karachi, between the port of Soumeanee and the Aghor river, there are three hills which throw up jets of liquid mud called Chandra-kûpa. The village nearest to Hinglaj is Urmura or Hurmura, situated on the coast at a distance of two days' march (*JASB.*, IX, p. 134).