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The temperature at 3 a.m.. was 65 degrees; at 3 p.m. 82 degrees; and at 10 p.m., 68 degrees, from which there was no great variation during the whole time we spent at these elevations. The clouds were rare, and always light and high, except a little fleecy spot of vapour condensed close to the summit of Paras-nath.
The hills are hornstone and quartz, stratified and dipping southerly with a very high angle; they are very barren, and evidently identical with those on the south bank of the Soane; skirting, in both cases, the granite and gneiss range of Paras-nath.
It is small, and contains little worthy of notice but the sculptured feet of Paras-nath, and some marble Boodh idols; cross-legged figures with crisp hair and the Brahminical cord. These, a leper covered with ashes in the vestibule, and an officiating priest, were all we saw.
Further west again, the ranges separate, the southern still betraying a nucleus of granite, forming the Satpur range, which divides the valley of the Taptee from that of the Nerbudda. The Paras-nath range is, though the most difficult of definition, the longer of the two parallel ranges; the Vindhya continued as the Kymore, terminating abruptly at the Fort of Chunar on the Ganges.
This being the most convenient station whence to ascend Paras-nath, we started at 6 a.m. for the village of Maddaobund, at the north base of the mountain, or opposite side from that on which the grand trunk-road runs. The seeds, too, yield a concrete oil, by expression, which is used for lamps and occasionally for frying.
As a sect of Boodhists their religion is considered pure, and free from the obscenities so conspicuous in Hindoo worship; whilst, in fact, perhaps the reverse is the case; but the symbols are fewer, and indeed almost confined to the feet of Paras-nath, and the priests jealously conceal their esoteric doctrines. The temples, though small, are well built, and carefully kept.
It is, however, well developed on the Kymore and Paras-nath hills, 1200 to 1500 feet above the Ganges valley, and I have no doubt was deposited in very deep water, when the relative positions of these mountains to the Ganges and Soane valleys were the same that they are now.
The general and geological features of the two, especially along their eastern course, are very different. This consists of metamorphic gneiss, in various highly inclined beds, through which granite hills protrude, the loftiest of which is Paras-nath.
The neighbouring mountains of Curruckpore, which are a portion of the Rajmahal and Paras-nath range, are peopled by tribes representing the earliest races of India, prior to the invasion of young Rama, prince of Oude, who, according to the legend, spread Brahminism with his conquests, and won the hand of King Jannuk's daughter, Seeta, by bending her father's bow.
The cliffs are about 1000 feet high, and the plants similar to those at the foot of Paras-nath, but stunted: I climbed to the top, the latter part by steps or ledges of sandstone. The summit was clothed with long grass, trees of Diospyros and Terminalia, and here and there the Boswellia.
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