Sculptures found at Sursari Ganga, Kalinjar

Introduction: Sursari Ganga lies on latitude 25000'21" N and longitude 80029'22" E to the north of Kalinjar fort at the toe of the hill as indicated in the map. Three samadhis, one samadhi and Shravana Baba lies to the north-west of the tank at the distances of 140 meter, 190 meter and 340 meter respectively. In 1848, Lt. Maisey mentioned this place in his article title 'Description of the antiquities at Kalinjar' 1 . Cunningham in his report of 1883-84 described Sursari Ganga with the name of Ganga Sagar 2 . He also noticed that image of water carrier was fixed at a little distance from this tank and was probably carried from some temple near the tank. Fuhrer mentioned this place in his report published in 18913 . S. A. N. Rizwi mentions Sursari Ganga in his article published in 2002 place 4 . The antiquities are piled at different places around Sursari Ganga. The store room at north-eastern corner and the dilapidated structure near it house many antiquities which will be descried in the main body of this report. Some pieces are kept on raised platforms situated on both sides of the point where the staircase reaches the platform of the bund. The other two places were large number of antiquities have been piled up at Sheetala Mata Mandir and a broken temple situated in the middle of the southern bank of the tank. A lot of antiquities are fixed in the steps around the tank. I have recorded only those antiquities which are above the water level of the tank in the month of January 2021. Many antiquities are fixed below this level and they can't be reached in this season and these will be rec when water level goes down. These antiquities are dateable from 9th century A.D. to 20th century A.D. It appears that the temples were constructed here in three phases. The first phase was 9th -10th century A.D. The second phase was 10th -11th century A.D. and the third phase was 11th -12th century A.D. The three early Sultanate period structures stand on north-western corner and mid northern side of the tank. There was some building activity during 17th -18th century A.D. After that small shrines were made during 19th -20th century A.D. The antiquities found around Shravana Baba were probably taken from remains strewn around the tank. The two clusters of samadhis are of modern times.