Britain has become heir to the monuments of Indraprastha raised by the descendants of Budha and Ila; to the iron pillar of the Pandavas, "whose pedes… - James Tod

Those who expect from a people like the Hindus a species of composition of precisely the same character as the historical works of Greece and Rome commit the very gregarious error of overlooking the peculiarities which distinguish the natives of India from all other races, and which strongly discriminate their intellectual productions of every kind from those of the West. Their philosophy, their poetry, their architecture, are marked with traits of originality; and the same may be expected to pervade their history, which, like the arts enumerated, took a character from its intimate association with the religion of the people. It must be recollected, moreover,… that the chronicles of all the polished nations of Europe, were, at a much more recent date, as crude, as wild, and as barren, as those of the early Rajputs.

To the drying up of the Hakra, or Gliaggar, many centuries ago, in conjunction with moral evils, is ascribed the existing desolation. According to tradition, this stream took a westerly direction, by Phidra, where it is yet to be traced, and fell into the Indus below Uchh. The couplet recording its absorption by the sands of Ner has already been given, in the time of Rao Hamir, prince of Dhat. If the next European traveller who may pass through the Indian desert will seek out the representative of the ancient Sodha princes at Chor, near Umarkot, he may learn from their bard (if they retain such an appendage) the date of this prince, and that of so important an event in the physical and political history of their regions. The vestiges of large towns, now buried in the sands, confirm the truth of this tradition, and several of them claim a high antiquity ; such as the Rangmahall, already mentioned, west of Bhatner, having subterranean apartments still ill good preservation. An aged native of Daudusar (twenty- five miles south of Bhatner) replied, to my inquiry as to the recollections attached to this place, that “ it belonged to a Panwar prince who ruled once all these regions, when Sikandar Riimi attacked them.”

I could have consumed a month in surveying the works of the princely merchant, but time pressed, and other objects of equal importance awaited me. Passing through a court, a flight of steps conducts to the rival temple, dedicated to Parswanat’h, the twenty-third and most popular of the Jineswars. This shrine was erected by the brothers Tej Pal and Bussunt Pal, likewise merchants of the Jain persuasion, who inhabited the city of Chandravati during the sway of Dharaburz, and when Bheem Deo was paramount sovereign of Western India. The design and execution of this shrine and all its accessories are on the model of the preceding, which, however, as a whole, it surpasses. It has more simple majesty, the fluted columns sustaining the munduff are loftier, and the vaulted interior is fully equal to the other in richness of sculpture, and superior to it in the execution, which is more free and in finer taste... It is impossible to give a distinct idea of the richness and variety of the bassi-relievi either of the principal dome or the minor ones which surround it. We must not, however, overlook a singular ornament pendant from the larger vault, the delineation of which defies the pen, and would tax to the utmost the pencil of the most patient artist. Although it has some analogy to the corbeille of a gothic cathedral, there is nothing in the most florid style of gothic architecture that can be compared with this in richness. Its form is cylindrical, about three feet in length, and where it drops from the ceiling, it appears like a cluster of the half-disclosed lotus, whose cups are so thin, so transparent, and so accurately wrought, that it fixes the eye in admiration….