The remains thereafter were documented by Buchanan, who visited on 21st February, 1811, during his survey of Bhagalpur, and later also by Babu Rajendra Lala Mitra and General Alexander Cunningham, who visited respectively in 1864 and 1879. Cunningham after his tour in February, 1879, ascribed the rock cut images to the 2nd / 3rd Century AD. The same were ascribed to around the 7th / 8th century AD by Bloch and later have been understood by Frederick M Asher, S. Sahai, Dr R.C.P Singh and others, as having been sculpted from the early Gupta days to the medieval period. Dr Singh in his monumental work on the Archaeology of Champa and Vikramshila tried to compile the iconography and chronology of the sculptures in more detail and importantly clarified (within brackets) that the hillock referred as Baiskaran by Cunningham and Buchanan, was actually Vyasakarna.

The accounts of Buchanan remain invaluable since he freely documented and interpreted whatever he witnessed according to his experience and understanding. Interestingly, Sultanganj is mentioned as being the largest town of the then division with about 250 houses, having a good deal of trade under “Thanah Kumurgunj”, the concurrent name of which has been mentioned to have originated from “the Kangwar, or pots suspended from a pole, that are used for carrying water in pilgrimages.” A village named Kamarganj still exists near Sultanganj, which confirms the ancient tradition of pilgrimage and may also be of significance in tracing the original name of the site, which he stated as “occupied by invalids, shopkeepers and retailers of Tari, who lived by supplying passengers”, and noticed 3 or 4 “wretched huts” at the end of the town, where lived Goalas from Katak, who played with snakes and danced to a kind of bag-pipe, indicating the presence of a Sapera community. He described the hills as consisting of a fine granite, reddish felspar, little white quartz and much black mica, with Jahngira, or the “Fakir’s rock”, “not as large as any of the three islands at Kahalgaon was separated from another hill of the same materials, now belonging to the Muhammedan saint, by a branch of the Ganges, perhaps 400 yards wide.

To be continued....