During the visit of Cunningham, the lion pillar was found to be situated in the middle of a small courtyard with small rooms on three sides – which was being used as a residence by a sanyasi called locally as “Baba”, aged around 30 years. The baba allowed Cunningham to proceed with the excavation around the pillar and unexpectedly did not raise any religious scruples. Cunningham made an excavation all round the shaft till he reached the water level.

He found the pillar polished till that point, and was told that the Bengali who had excavated earlier had found a square pedestal in three steps at the level of water. He also learnt that previous excavation upto the water level had not fructified in the discovery of any inscription. He however found a few short records in the shell shaped characters, that were believed to be of the 7th to 8th century A.D. He concluded that the pillar had sunk in the times since it had been erected partly to the insufficiency of the basement and partly due to the low stiffness of the soil. Cunningham also found the general appearance of the lion capital very striking.

There is no inscription on the pillar to declare the reason for its erection, however it is possible that a former inscription may have weathered away with the passage of time, as the surface has suffered considerably. The names of several visitors were found scribbled. Cunningham found that none of the Nagari inscriptions were more than 200 or 300 years old.

To be continued...