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placed in high relief near the door; the height of the door, or entrance, is twelve feet, and the breadth exactly half of the length. From this door to the farther or eastern end of the great temple, which is the extreme length of the hall, and where the floor is considerably raised, having smaller temples, the depth is one hundred and four feet; beyond that and including the platform, the total is one hundred and forty-three feet and the breadth sixty-one feet six inches, not including two balconies which project outside the great hall, and overlook the courts and piazza below. I have called them balconies, but porticoes or galleries would, perhaps, be a fitter designation; they are thirty-five feet by fifteen feet two inches, and have seats of rock similar to the outer portico.

At the entrance, the canopy, or roof of rock, is upheld by two pillars resting on elephants, and two figures ornament the entrance as we approach from the great hall.

The whole of this noble hall is divided by four ranges of square pillars, leaving aisles or passages. In the centre of the hall the intermission of an entire row leaves a larger passage; the space where the range is wanting is fourteen feet broad, as the rows of pillars are placed nearly uniform; the sections, either across, or down the length of the room, are correctly preserved: each row consists of four pillars, the circumference of which, at the shaft, is eleven feet; the four centre ones have a capital not unlike a well-stuffed round cushion, pressed heavily down, with the outer edge fluted and full, as if forced out by a heavy weight, resting

on its capital; this may be an uncouth simile, but it approaches nearer to it than anything else to which it can be The others are divested of an ornamental archi

likened.

trave or capital.

The rock above is excavated a few inches thick, in imitation of beams supporting the roof, and resting on the heads of the pillars, and crossing their capitals at right angles: it is, I conjecture, merely a fanciful imitation of rafters, as they could not afford any security to the enormous weight of rock roof above; but the imitation conveys a meaning of what the artificers thought when working here. In the centre of the ceiling are carved a male and two females; the inner row of pillars, or those nearest to the walls, have, opposite to them, pilasters adorning the sides of the hall, and likewise four beautiful figures of females, whose heads reach to the cornice, nearly twelve feet high. The figures sculptured here of these idols are of some little importance in the endless catalogue of Hindoo mythology.

The principal figures, in point of rank, in the great hall, are easily recognized. Lakshmi (the wife of Vishnu, a god of the Hindoo triad). She presides over marriage and prosperity. My Brahman called the next figure represented Raj Janekas, a famous hero of old, who had the good fortune to be succoured by the goddess Sita, when an infant, being found in a box in a field. Another is the figure of Guttur Dass; but some of the Brahmans, who were present at the time, called him Raj Booj. These are larger

than life and are well executed. The two warlike brothers, Pundoo and Couroo, are displayed here; their feats are fully described in the holy war in the Mahabarat. The Hindoos, high and low, learned and unlearned, of ancient and modern times, attribute the whole of the temples, both here and at Karli, to the labours of the Pandoos,-that they were constructed by them by means of the heavenly influence and the supernatural powers they possessed.

TEMPLE OF MADURA

PIERRE LOTI

T Madura, the town which was once the capital of a splendour-loving king, there is a temple dedicated to Siva and to Parvati his wife, the goddess with the eyes of the fish-a temple that is larger than the Louvre and much more elaborately sculptured, and which contains perhaps as many marvels.

Thanks to the influence of the gracious Maharajah of Travancore, I shall be able to enter this sanctuary, descend to its underground caverns and see the treasures and headdresses of the goddess.

In the temples of India twilight always comes on long before its usual time, under the shadow of low roofs that are heavy and oppressive as those of sepulchres. The evening sun is still shining in the west, but the little lamps placed at the approach of the Temple of Madura, and along the granite covered avenue that forms a sort of prefatory vestibule where garland-sellers are stationed, are already lighted. Any one coming from the outside, as I do, sees everything mingled in universal gloom; men, idols, monsters, human faces and great stone faces, rigid gestures of statues who have too many arms, and the real motions of men who have but two. The sacred cattle, after wandering through the

streets all day, have come here, too, to nibble flowers and reeds before retiring to sleep in the temple.

After the avenue there is a door like a tunnel that pierces through a huge pyramid of gods that towers into the sky. Then we reach the temple itself, a silent and echoing city, whose vaulted streets cross one another in all directions, and whose countless people are the stone images graven here. Each column and each monstrous pillar is made of a single block, placed upright by means unknown to us-perhaps by the united strength of millions of sinews --and afterwards deeply sculptured, carved with images of all sorts of gods and monsters. The ceilings are entirely flat, and at the first glance it is difficult to see how they are supported; then we notice that they are composed of single blocks of stone eight to ten metres long, resting on their two extremities, and that an infinite number of these blocks have been placed side by side, just as ordinary planks are placed with us. The whole structure is built somewhat in the manner of those almost everlasting edifices of Thebes or Memphis over which time has no control.

From an inner court that is open to the sky, I catch a glimpse of the fading evening light. It is unoccupied, but some peacocks are perched with outspread tails on the granite monsters. Above the surrounding walls, those red and green towers, those surprising pyramids of gods are visible at various distances; half-way up amidst the divinities, swallows and parrots flutter round their nests, but

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