Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 2.djvu/641

Rh in this temple originally there was no tank, and so Siva was obliged to make a passage under the sea to allow the water of the Ganges to come a thousand miles and supply this tank with water. Alongside this tank there was a bench, and there was a sect of holy men who had a right to sit upon it. This bench had the peculiar faculty of elongating itself at pleasure, or becoming shorter, as the case might be, and therefore, when anybody applied to be admitted a member of this holy sect, he was ordered to sit on the bench. If the bench elongated, he was to be received as a member; if the bench became shorter, he went head over heels into the water, and could not become a member; and, as the water was in a very foul state, he did not have a very pleasant bath.

Now we come to the Palace of Madura. It formerly covered a square mile of ground, and was a most splendid building. Every pillar you see is 50 feet high. There is very little of it left now, and what little there is, is used as a court of justice every day in the season. The next view will give you a better idea of this wonderful place. It is taken from the inside, looking outward, and gives a side-face view of the square, three sides of which still stand. The interior of one of the colonnades also gives a very good idea of the grandeur of the place.

We now strike across the sea-shore, and on going a little to the north we cross a small arm of the sea, and come to Ramisseram, which has the most celebrated temple in the south, if not in the whole of India. Its corridors are considered the finest in the south—the door at the end marks the entrance to the sanctuary—they are 300 feet long; each pillar is one block of solid gray granite. Unfortunately, from its being whitewashed, much of the beauty is hidden. If at any future day it should be cleaned, it will, of course, be in a better state of preservation thereby.

This gives, an idea of the strange way the Hindoos sculpture the pillars in their temples. The figure is nothing but that of a juggler, and yet he is carved out of one of the pillars in one of the most sacred temples in India. The side-aisle of the Temple of Ramisseram is 700 feet long; the window at the end is five feet high, and gives some idea of its length. When we consider that the pillars are of granite, and the enormous time it must have taken to build such a temple, and carve such a wonderful corridor, I think you will agree with me that it is a work which the world can hardly excel. Four thousand feet is the aggregate length of the corridors. The temple is situated at the edge of the sea, and receives the pilgrim after his long and toilsome march of 3,000 miles from the north. Only those who know what Indian travel is can conceive what he must have gone through; when he leaves the Ganges he is laden with bottles, one of which he is bound to leave at every temple till he arrives here, and leaves the last, and here he hopes for rest. But he has no rest yet, for the Bramins take him to the sea, and the actions they make him go through at daylight are very absurd. Then, between here and Ceylon, is a long sand-bank,