Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 7.djvu/152

BRAHMINS OF OOMKAR, MUNDUATA. "The Rajah of Mundhata, who is hereditary custodian of all the modern temples, is a Bhilala, claiming descent from a Chohan Rajpoot, named Bharat Singh, who is stated in the family genealogy to have taken Mundhata from a Bhil chief in the year 1068. The genealogy gives twenty-eight generations to the family since then, and twenty-five years to each generation. The same genealogy affirms that at that time a Gosain named Duryao Nath was the only worshipper of Oomkar on the island, which could not be visited by pilgrims for fear of a terrible god called Kal Bhairawa, and his consort Kali Devi, who regularly fed upon human flesh. Duryao Nath, however, by his austerities, shut up the latter in a subterranean cave, the mouth of which may still be seen, appeasing her by erecting an image outside to receive worship, and arranged with Kal Bhairawa that for the future he should receive human sacrifices at regular intervals; and accordingly devotees were induced to precipitate themselves over the Birkbala rocks, at the eastern end of the island, on to the rocks by the river's brink, where the terrible deity resided—a Practice which continued till 1824, in which year the British officer in charge of Nimaur witnessed the last offering of the sort made to Kal Bhairawa. It is not difficult to trace in this fragmentary story the revival of the worship of Siva, which took place about the tenth or eleventh century, and its gradual propagation by adventurous missionaries, adopting as it went the Kalis and Bhairawas of the savage tribes as mythological consorts and sons of Siva, just as its Rajpoot protectors allied themselves with the daughters of the wild hill chiefs who worshipped these bloodthirsty demons.

"The old temples about Mundhata all suffered greatly from the bigotry of the Mahomedans, who ruled the country from about 1400. Every old dome is overthrown, and not a single figure of a god or animal is found to be unmutilated. Doubtless the work was continued by the Ghori princes of Malwah, and completed by that arch iconoclast, Aurungzeeb; yet much remains among the ruins, which must be highly interesting to the archæologist. The walls of the different parts, two of which enclose the two sections of the island itself; and two more, the rocky eminence on the southern banks, display some excellent specimens of Hindoo architecture. They are formed of very large blocks of stone without cement. The stone is partly the basalt of the hill itself; and partly a coarse yellow sandstone, which must have been brought from a considerable distance. The gateways are formed with horizontal arches, and ornamented with much fine carving, statues of gods, &c."

Mr. Forsyth gives an elaborate description, for which we have not space, of one of the temples, which, though now much destroyed, must have been a noble specimen of Hindoo architecture. "It is not unreasonable to conclude," he writes, "that it was just being finished in 1295, when Sultan Ala-ad-deen interrupted the works, demolishing even the elephants which were still standing in