Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/327

283 The great attraction of the place is the temple of Maha-deva, the “mighty god” Siva. The entrance to this temple, styled by the Tamil people a gobram, by the English, pagoda, is very lofty, being, if I remember aright, twelve stories in height, and may be seen for miles around, towering above the cocoanut-trees with which the streets of the “golden city” are planted. This structure is upon the same model as that upon which all the gobrams of Southern India are built. They stand in the centre of one of the four walls which surround the temple, which is properly only the dwelling-place of the idol-god, and frequently very small. They are pyramidal in shape, and rise in successive stories, gradually diminishing as they ascend. In the first story of the gobram is the gateway to the courts and shrines within. Each succeeding story is reached by flights of steps, and has an arched door-like opening, through which you can see the sky beyond. They are built usually of brick, stuccoed with chunam, (Madras plaster,) and are completely covered with grotesque images of gods, demons, and creatures of all imaginable shapes, and of some shapes quite unimaginable, save by a Hindu.