Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/328

284 The temple proper, as in the temple at Jerusalem, stands in a court within this gateway, and upon a slightly raised platform. Around this court runs a deep portico supported by stone columns, said to be a thousand in number. Of these, some are plain, and others carved into the shape of animals, vases, gods, &c. On the walls, also, are many sculptured scenes. Many of these scenes, though in the spot devoted to the worship of their gods, are so vile, that human nature, unless itself as vile, would blush to confess that it could conceive them. Yet, here the gods are worshipped—this is a holy place, and to visit it an act of piety! Such is Hinduism, and such the moral sense of the Hindus! Such, rather, is human nature left to reveal its own depravity.

The great temple of Siva has not a monopoly of the sacred city. The worshippers of the rival god Vishnu have also a famous temple here. It is not Christianity alone, as many suppose, that is divided into sects. Hinduism has its sects, who have engaged in bloody wars to decide whether Siva or Vishnu was the supreme ruler; and Mohammedans of different sects hate each other as bitterly as do the Vishnuvites the Sivites. A line of separation