Concealment and protection of sacred images, pratimas of deities is well documented in the pages of our medieval history. We have heard of how vigrahas were taken out of the temples by the priests and put in ponds, rivers and wells fearing attack and destruction by the invading

barbarians. An inscription in Sanskrit in the Nagari script from Etawah from the 13th century in the name of the then reigning king of the place Maharaja Ajaysimha who was the nephew of the Gahadavala ruler Raja Jaichandra of Kannauj records how the royal purohit removed the

pratima of Maa Durga set up in the fort at Etawah and confined it to a pit (gartta) so that it could be saved from attack by the invading mlecchas and restored when the god Skanda had tuned the enemies glory to dust.
The inscription opens with adoration of Maa Durga the dweller

of the fort and destroyer of bad luck.

The reference to the concealment of the moorti of Maa Durga for fear of mlechchas suggests that within the lifetime of Maharaja Ajaysimha and his Raja Purohit the province ruled over by Ajaysimha had become vulnerable to the raids from the invading barbarians and the purpose of

the inscription was to indicate the hiding place of the pratima to facilitate its recovery at a later time. Apparently the concealment of the moorti proved enduring as once the mlechchas came to occupy the place it could never be recovered by Ajaysimha.