The most antique temples are to be seen in these spots—within the dark gorge of the mountain, or on its rugged summit—in the depths of the forest, an… - James Tod

The affinity that this word (Hakra) has botli to the Ghaggar, and Sankra,” would lead to the conclusion of either being the stream referred to. The former we know as being engulphed in the sands about the Hariana confines, while the Sankra is a stream which, though now dry, was used as a line of demarcation even in the time of Nadir Shah. It ran eastward, parallel with the Indus, and by making it his boundary Nadir added all the fertile valley of the Indus to his Persian kingdom.

Thus, taking an average of the whole, we may consider fifty-five princes to be the number of descents from Budha to Krishna and Yudhishthira; and, admitting an average of twenty years for each reign, a period of eleven hundred years; which being added to a like period calculated from thence to Vikramaditya, who reigned fifty-six years before Christ, I venture to place the establishment in India Proper of these two grand races, distinctively called those of Surya and Chandra, at about 2256 years before the Christian era; at which period, though somewhat later, the Egyptian, Chinese, and Assyrian monarchies are generally stated to have been established, and about a century and a half after that great event, the Flood.

SIDPOOR – JUNE 20th – In the infancy of our geography of India, the illustrious D’ Anville said of this city, “ville qui tire son nom des Shites, ou toiles peintes, qui s’y fabriquent;” but it boasts of a more dignified etymology, being called after its patron, the Balhara prince, Sid-Rae. By some he is supposed to be the founder, but there is every reason to believe that he was only the renovator, of this place, the position of which on the Sarasvati, flowing from the shrine of Ambabhavani, is well-chosen. Here are the remains of what in past ages must have been one of the grandest efforts of Hindu architecture, a temple dedicated to Siva, and termed Roodra-Mala, or ‘the chaplet of Roodra,’ the god of battle; but so disjointed are the fragments, that it is difficult to imagine what it may have been as a whole. They are chiefly portions of porticoes, one of which tradition names the prostyle of the munduff, or vaulted mansion occupied by the bull, companion of Roodra, whose sanctum was converted into a mosque. It is said to have been a rectangular building, five stories in height, and if we may judge from one portion yet remaining, this could not have been less than one hundred feet…I found two inscriptions, from one of which I learned that it was commenced by Raja Moolraj [the founder of the Solankhi dynasty of Anhilwara], in S. 998 [A.D. 942], and from the other that it was finished by Sid-Raj…A couplet records its destruction by All-u-din – “In S. 1353 [A.D. 1297], came the barbarian Alla: the Roodra-Mala he levelled, “carrying destruction amongst the lords of men.”