Journal

xlvii, May 1882; and compare the article Lats). The most prominent is the Sivalik Lat, which Firdz Shah removed, at enormous expense, from a temple on the Jumna river, to the top of his Delhi palace, where he placed it (like a lingam) between two domes. It is a column of hard, smooth, red sandstone, 37 feet high, tapering as a truncated cone from a base of 10 feet 4 inches circumference. It bears several inscriptions, one in Nagari characters as late as April 9th, 1164 a.c. This speaks of the extermination of Mlechas, or “heretics” denying the contemporary Hindu beliefs. In the Napal Terai has lately been found, near the tank of Nigliva (37 miles N.W. of Uska on the N. Bangal railway) a broken Lat, inscribed in the Magadhi language of the 3rd century B.C. as follows: “ When the god-beloved king Piyadasi (Aséka) had been anointed 14 years, he increased the stupa of Buddha-Konikamana for the second time; and when he had been anointed... years, he himself came and worshiped it: he caused it to obtain...” The rest is at present unread, being on that part of the Lat sunk in the ground. (Dr G. Biihler, Academy, April 27th, 1895). 201