The construction of the dargah was undertaken centuries after his death. Before the erection of the building of the Dargah, the ground was probably a mound consisting of the heap of ruins of the great temple of the Raja of Maner, which was razed to the ground by the Muslim conquerors, and on this mound was Hazrat Makhdum Yahya buried after his death in 1292 A.D. The tradition that Bari Dargah was erected on the site of a great temple appears to be correct.

The stone lion called Singh Sadaul looks very like a sculpture usually found at the gate of large temples, and probably in the times of yore, it used to keep watch at the gate of the great temple, as it now does, at the gate of the Bari Dargah. Within the courtyard of the Dargah, there are certain stone pillars which appear to be of very ancient origin, look like remnants of a demolished building and apparently serve no useful purpose there. Probably these pillars also were left to point out that there was a temple there. During my enquiry, I learnt that formerly there were several pillars of this type, but some of them were removed by unscrupulous persons and only a few of them are now left.

Then, the stone lintel of the northern gate also deserves attention. It is a very solid and thick piece or granite stone, and has certain grooves in it, which show it was formerly a base or platform on which some other piece of stone (may be a statue) was fixed; and from underneath this stone peeps another black stone, and may be the statue itself put there by the bigoted builders to be permanently trodden by visitors. It is, however, a mere guess and cannot be ascertained or verified unless the lintel-stone is removed from its place.”

To be continued.....