Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 2.djvu/92

 56

HISTORY OF INDIA.

[Book I^

A.D. —

Connection of British governnie:it nitli tlie festival of

it could not have been misunderstood, and would in itself have been unobjec- tionable. Most unwisely, and we need not hesitate to add, impiously, they vii'tually took the grim and obscene idol under their protection, by undertaking to levy his revenues, and defray all the expenses of his estaljlishment. In con- sequence of the coimection thus formed they not only appointed one of their servants to collect the pilgrim tax, and pay over any residue which might accrue into their own treasury, but furnished part at least of the trappings used in tlie festival. There can be no doubt of the fact ; and hence Stirling, in his excellent account of Orissa, inserted in volume xv. of the Asiatic Researches, when alluding incidentally to the appearance of the oxiths or cars, says, that " every part of the ornament is of the most mean and paltry description, save only the

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Car and Procession of Juggernaut. — From Fergusson's Hindoo Architecture

covering of strijjed and spangled hroadclotli furnished from the export 'ware- house of the British governraent, the splendour and gorgeous effect oftvhich com- pensate in a great measure for other deficiencies of decoration." The cutting censure here implied is afterwards distinctly pronounced when he describes the difficulty of dragging the cars from the flagging zeal of the pilgrims; and then adds — ' Even the gods' own proper servants will not labour zealously and effectually without the interposition of authority. I imagine the ceremony would soon cease to be conducted on its present scale and footing, if the institution were left entirely to its fate, and to its own resources, by the officers of the British government." In other words, a government professedly Cliristian was