Meer Hassan Ali, B.: Observations on the Mussulmauns of India: descriptive of their manners, customs, habits, and religious opinions ; made during a twelve years residence in their immediate Society (Band 2) (London, 1832)

STONE PILLARS. 137

curve, the whole colonnade is in a perfect state.
The hall, including the colonnade, measures one
hundred and eighty feet by thirty, and has doubt-
less been, at some time or other, a place of wor-
ship, in all probability for the Mussulmauns,
there being still within the edifice a sort of
pulpit of stone evidently intended for the reader,
both from its situation and construction; this
has sustained many rude efforts from the chisel
in the way of ornament not strictly in accord-
ance with the temple itself; besides which,
there are certain tablets engraved in the Per-
sian and Arabic character, which contain verses
or chapters from the Khoraun; so that it may
be concluded, whatever was the original de-
sign of the building, it has in later periods
served the purposes of a mosque.

In some parts of this building traces exist
to prove that the materials of which it has been
formed originally belonged to the Hindoos, for
upon many of the stones there are carved
figures according with their mythology; such
stones, however, have been placed generally
upside down, and attempts to deface the graven