Khota Pathar Mound

An enormous door sill of granite stone , measuring 9 ft. 4 ins. By 2 ft. 5 ins. Still lies on the top of this mound which is located about 200 yards to the northwest of the mazar .It has a floral design carved in its face and the top is recessed and provided with holes 6 ft. apart for the door shutters. It seems that this mound was excavated in 1907and a stone pavement was reached at a depth of 5 ft. The stone actually lay on the top of a 9 ft. long rubble wall and the stone pavement was the original stone pavement of the temple. The temple measured 24 ft .by 15 ft. and its foundation walls of stone could be clearly traced. The walls above this level were of brick in clay masonry .The door jambs, lintels and the ornamental ornamental portion above the door were possibly made of stone. The large piece of stone which we even today on the top of the mound the sill of the temple structure .several carved stone pieces were obtained during the excavations. One of them measured 2 ft.3 ins, by 8 ins, and showed a relief of three seated Buddha figures, each places in an arched niche , with a devotee seated with folded palms to the left . The central figure was in meditative posture and the figures on the two sides were in the earth-touching pose bhumisparsa mudra. It is obvious that a large Buddhist temple has stood at this site. This mound lies a little to the north of the Khoda Pathar mound . There were buildings of cornices of many varieties. Portions of undulated eaves, And of amalaka fruits of the pinnacles of a temple. I got also twelve square alto-relieves, and one small pilaster or baluster. Which formed the upright of two of these panels of a long frieze …Along with these I obtained two bronze figures of Ganesa and Garuda, and a fragment of blue stone pedestal with the end of an inscription in mediaeval Nagari characters reading nagrabara, which would seem to show that the great mound of Mankali-ja -Jundil was part of an ancient agrahara belonging to Brahmans.Associated the name of this mound with the Jaina apostle, Goshala ,who was called Manjhali-putra .He collected in 1912 the torso of a crude and unfinished jaina image from this mound. The mound was excavated in 1565-6 and revealed in the top level the remain of a pre-Mughal mosque .But nondescript building remains were encountered in an earlier phase which yielded some sunga plaques and a fairly large collection of the famous N.B.P pottery.

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