The hill of Girnar, on the south coast of Gujerat, not far from Puttun Somnath, is another shrine of the Jains, as sacred, but somehow not so fashionable in modern times as that at Palitana. It wants, consequently, that bewildering magnificence arising from the number and variety of buildings of all ages that crowd that temple city. Besides this, the temples themselves at Girnar lose much of their apparent size from being perched on the side of a hill rising 3500 ft. above the level of the sea, composed of granite rocks strewn about in most picturesque confusion. Although we have no Girnar Mahatmya to retail fables and falsify dates, as is done at Sutrunjya, we have at Girnar inscriptions which prove that in ancient times it must have been a place of great importance. On a rock outside the town at its foot, called _par excellence_ Junaghar--the Old Fort--Asoka, B.C. 250, carved a copy of his celebrated edicts.[262] On the same rock, in A.D. 151, Rudra Dama, the Sah king of Saurastra, carved an inscription, in which he boasted of his victories over the Sat Karni, king of the Dekhan, and recorded his having repaired the bridge built by the Maurya Asoka.[263] The embankment of the Sudarsana lake again burst and carried away this bridge, but was again repaired by Skanda, the last of the great Guptas, in the year A.D. 457,[264] and another inscription on the same rock records this event. A place where three such kings thought it worth while to record their deeds or proclaim their laws must, one would think, have been an important city or place at that time; but what is so characteristic of India occurs here as elsewhere. No material remains are found to testify to the fact.[265] There are no remains of an ancient city, no temples or ruins that can approach the age of the inscriptions, and but for their existence we should not be aware that the place was known before the 10th century. There are, it is true, some caves in the Uparkot which may be old; but they have not yet been examined by any one capable of discriminating between ancient and modern things, and till so visited their evidence is not available.[266] My impression is that they may belong to the age of the Guptas, which was a great age for excavating caves of this class in India, but we must await further information before deciding. [Illustration: 126. Temple of Neminatha, Girnar. (From a Plan by Mr. Burgess.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]