National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

From Chōa Saidān Shāh we took occasion to pay a visit also to the village of
Malōt, some 15 miles by road to the west, where a comparatively well-preserved
Hindu temple of Kashmirian style invited renewed inspection. It stands in
impressive isolation on a bare rocky spur close to where the southern edge of
the Salt Range, here nearly 3,000 feet above sea-level, falls off with precipitous
cliffs towards the plain. The temple, together with the massive gateway which
faces it, as in the case of the larger Kashmīr temples, has been adequately de-
scribed by General Cunningham.¹⁷ Since his visit in 1872–3 it appears to have
suffered deterioration in the relief decoration on the outside. It was all the more
gratifying to note the measures of conservation which both structures have re-
ceived in recent years as 'Protected Monuments'. Both the architectural features
and the execution of the exuberant relief designs ornamenting the trefoil arches
above porches and niches indicate an earlier date for temple and gateway than
that of the extant shrines of Nandana and Ketās.

On the rocky hill-side to the north, and at a distance of about one-third of a
mile from the temple, there stands the modest village of Malōt. A steep drop
in the slope below it provides a good defensive position, and this has been pro-
tected by curtain walls of rough masonry. Through them leads a fine well-built
gate flanked by crenellated bastions, both closely resembling those seen at the
fort of Kusuk and probably of similar date. Local tradition connects Malōt with
Rāja Mal, an early chief of the Janjūa tribe who is supposed to have been the
first converted to Islām.

It only remains to mention that about 2½ miles to the north-east of Malōt a
little hollow filled with luxuriant vegetation holds the small Hindu sanctuary of
Shibgangā by the side of a pool fed by springs, gathering on marshy ground
higher up to the east. The temple is constructed in the Kashmirian style, but it
has been so heavily covered with plaster that none of the original decoration of
the walls is now visible.¹⁸

Section II—OLD SITES IN THE SHĀHPUR DISTRICT

On December 9th we set out from the Salt Range for the plain by the Jhēlum,
not without regret at having to leave so interesting and attractive a region. On
our descent by the road which connects Chōa Saidān Shāh with Pind Dādan
Khān, the sub-divisional head-quarters, and with the railway, I had an oppor-
tunity of revisiting the great salt-mines of Khewra. There a huge deposit of