10

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.

of Southern India. Another that they were built in order to protect the followers of Sālivahana from a rain of fire which had been foretold by one of the prophets of the land. All the many accounts agree in ascribing these circles to the

handiwork of a pigmy race. The following ex tracts with regard to the “rain of fire” from Vol. VII. (pp. 278, 279, 289) of the Madras Journalof Science and Literature are interesting:—

his army on the banks of the Kāveri (here used to designate a river in general) avoided it by plunging in the water. Siva, seeing this, had re course to the Supreme Being, and by meditating on the five lettered mantra, sent down a shower of

mud. Those in stone houses were thereby blocked up and suffocated ; those in rivers came out and escaped. • o o o o o o o e o o o o “One instance may be given of the fire-rain of which mention

the MS.

“Through his (Sâlivahana's) wickedness there was no rain—a great famine—much distress, and one house distant ten miles from any other house; the country little better than a waste benighted wilderness. The ascetics retiring to the wilderness in secret made murmuring complaints to Siva and Vishnu. Siva, to avenge the desolation, solicited from the Adi Parabarama (Supreme Being) a fire rain. Athi-seshan beforehand apprized Sālivahana of its approach in a dream. Sálivahana announced to all the followers of Sarvesvarer the coming fire

rain, and recommended them to build stone-houses, or to remain (on the day fixed), in rivers; by both of which means they would be preserved unin jured by the fire-rain. They followed his advice, some quarrying stones and building houses, others watching on the banks of the largest rivers; and they were all on the alert. Siva, opening his front let eye, sent a rain of fire. Sālivahana's people took refuge in their stone-houses and he himself with

[JANUARY, 1873.

occurs at the commencement

of

The Jains have a doctrine that a rain of

fire always goes before the periodically recurring universal deluge.

• *

• *

But though the

aforesaid notion of the Jains may have suggested the idea of fire-rain, yet it seems in the document under notice to be a symbol made use of to denote divine judgments: whether the idea, in this sense, may be borrowed from a well-known historical fact or otherwise, let others determine.

~

“The fire-rain rather seems to be a symbol of the anger of Siva: in plainer terms, an insurrec tion against Sālivahana ; and if so the shower of

mud may have a symbolical meaning also and may help to the meaning of a tradition which states that

Uriyur, the capital of the Chola kingdom, was destroyed by a shower of sand or mud.”

We have here a reason why the houses or

kistvaens were made of stone, i.e., to protect their inhabitants from the fire-rain, and how they were filled up by a shower of mud.

NOTES ON JUNNAR TALUKA, PUNA ZILLA. By W. F. SINCLAIR, Bo. C. S.

THERE is perhaps no other tract in the presi dency of the same extent which offers so many points of interest as the Junnar Tāluka, called

formerly Sivaneri, after the famous fort of that name; and certainly I know of none which con

tains within so small a space so much variety of climate and production.

of clay and gravel, which offer no foundation for any work that might restrain it within due bounds.

The ryots are well aware of its cha

racter, and accordingly most of the villages are set pretty well back from the stream. In one, however, Nirgudé, there is unfortunately a fine temple of Māruti, built upon a knowe, that

Junnar is the northernmost taluka of the

was probably considered secure, about a hundred

Pumá Collectorate, marching with Nagar, and lies upon a series of mountain rivers which empty themselves into the Ghér, something in the shape of a three-pronged fork. The prongs are the valleys of three streams which, gradually converging, form in their delta

years back. But the river, constantly encroach ing, had at the time of my visit cut away the

the narrower socket. The southernmost of these, the Miná, rising in the deep glen of Amboli, flows eastward; at first through a narrow but

it was impossible to found any protecting work in the treacherous substrata, I suppose Māruti is by this time himself in a fair way to join his

fertile valley, called after it the Minäner.

worshippers in the bed of the Miná.

It

is as troublesome and capricious in its small way as the Ganges, and plays havoc every year

ground from under the village to such an extent

that it was disappearing at the rate of eight or ten houses a year. Government offered a new site, but the villagers declined to leave Māruti. As

This

temple is (or perhaps was) remarkable for its fine

cloisters, built, I believe, in the last century by

with boundaries, and sometimes with crops, for

a member of the Kulkarnis family, who had

the first ten miles of its course, changing from one bed to another in the deep lacustrine beds

grown rich in the service of Mādhaji Sinde on the plunder of Hindustän.