From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan | Page 4

long
lateen sails, their narrow angles fastened upwards to a yard. Filling
these two wings with the wind, and careening, so as almost to touch the
surface of the water, these boats will fly along with astonishing
swiftness. Unlike our European boats, they do not cut the waves, but
glide over them like a sea-gull.
The surroundings of the bay transported us to some fairy land of the
Arabian Nights. The ridge of the Western Ghats, cut through here and
there by some separate hills almost as high as themselves, stretched all
along the Eastern shore. From the base to their fantastic, rocky tops,
they are all overgrown with impenetrable forests and jungles inhabited
by wild animals. Every rock has been enriched by the popular

imagination with an independent legend. All over the slope of the
mountain are scattered the pagodas, mosques, and temples of
numberless sects. Here and there the hot rays of the sun strike upon an
old fortress, once dreadful and inaccessible, now half ruined and
covered with prickly cactus. At every step some memorial of sanctity.
Here a deep vihara, a cave cell of a Buddhist bhikshu saint, there a rock
protected by the symbol of Shiva, further on a Jaina temple, or a holy
tank, all covered with sedge and filled with water, once blessed by a
Brahman and able to purify every sin, all indispensable attribute of all
pagodas. All the surroundings are covered with symbols of gods and
goddesses. Each of the three hundred and thirty millions of deities of
the Hindu Pantheon has its representative in something consecrated to
it, a stone, a flower, a tree, or a bird. On the West side of the Malabar
Hill peeps through the trees Valakeshvara, the temple of the "Lord of
Sand." A long stream of Hindus moves towards this celebrated temple;
men and women, shining with rings on their fingers and toes, with
bracelets from their wrists up to their elbows, clad in bright turbans and
snow white muslins, with foreheads freshly painted with red, yellow,
and white, holy sectarian signs.
The legend says that Rama spent here a night on his way from
Ayodhya (Oudh) to Lanka (Ceylon) to fetch his wife Sita who had been
stolen by the wicked King Ravana. Rama's brother Lakshman, whose
duty it was to send him daily a new lingam from Benares, was late in
doing so one evening. Losing patience, Rama erected for himself a
lingam of sand. When, at last, the symbol arrived from Benares, it was
put in a temple, and the lingam erected by Rama was left on the shore.
There it stayed during long centuries, but, at the arrival of the
Portuguese, the "Lord of Sand" felt so disgusted with the feringhi
(foreigners) that he jumped into the sea never to return. A little farther
on there is a charming tank, called Vanattirtha, or the "point of the
arrow." Here Rama, the much worshipped hero of the Hindus, felt
thirsty and, not finding any water, shot an arrow and immediately there
was created a pond. Its crystal waters were surrounded by a high wall,
steps were built leading down to it, and a circle of white marble
dwellings was filled with dwija (twice born) Brahmans.
India is the land of legends and of mysterious nooks and corners. There
is not a ruin, not a monument, not a thicket, that has no story attached

to it. Yet, however they may be entangled in the cobweb of popular
imagination, which becomes thicker with every generation, it is
difficult to point out a single one that is not founded on fact. With
patience and, still more, with the help of the learned Brahmans you can
always get at the truth, when once you have secured their trust and
friendship.
The same road leads to the temple of the Parsee fire-worshippers. At its
altar burns an unquenchable fire, which daily consumes
hundredweights of sandal wood and aromatic herbs. Lit three hundred
years ago, the sacred fire has never been extinguished, notwithstanding
many disorders, sectarian discords, and even wars. The Parsees are very
proud of this temple of Zaratushta, as they call Zoroaster. Compared
with it the Hindu pagodas look like brightly painted Easter eggs.
Generally they are consecrated to Hanuman, the monkey-god and the
faithful ally of Rama, or to the elephant headed Ganesha, the god of the
occult wisdom, or to one of the Devis. You meet with these temples in
every street. Before each there is a row of pipals (Ficus religiosa)
centuries old, which no temple can dispense with, because these trees
are the abode of the elementals and the sinful souls.
All this is entangled, mixed, and scattered, appearing to one's eyes like
a picture in a dream. Thirty centuries have left their traces