THE SOUTH INDIAN TEMPLES.
Leaving Colombo by steamer one evening in the later part of January, I
landed on the sandy flat shores of Tuticorin the next day about noon.
The deck was crowded with 250 of the poorest class of Tamils, coolies
mostly, with women and children, lying in decent confusion heaped upon
one another, passively but sadly enduring the evil motion of the ship
and the cold night air. One man, nameless, unknown, and abjectly thin,
died in the night and was cast overboard. I was the only Englishman on
board beside the captain and officers. Said the second officer, “Well,
I would rather have these fellows than a lot of English emigrants.
The lowest class of English are the damnedest, dirtiest, etceteraest
etceteras in the world.”
Tuticorin is a small place with a large cotton mill, several Roman
Catholic churches and chapels, relics of Portuguese times, and a
semi-christianised semi-wage-slaving native population. From there
to Madras is about two days by rail through the great plains of the
Carnatic, which stretch between the sea-shore and the Ghauts--long
stretches of sand and scrub, scattered bushes and small trees, and
the kittool palm; paddy at intervals where the land is moister, and
considerable quantities of cotton on the darker soil near Tuticorin;
mud and thatch villages under clumps of coco-palm (not such fine trees
as in Ceylon); and places of village worship--a portico or shrine with
a great clay elephant or half-circle of rude images of horses facing
it; the women working in the fields or stacking the rice-straw in
stacks similar to our corn-stacks; the men drawing water from their
wells to run along the irrigation channels, or in some cases actually
carrying the water in pots to pour over their crops!
These plains, like the plains of the Ganges, have been the scene of an
advanced civilization from early times, and have now for two thousand
years at any rate been occupied by the Tamil populations. Fergusson
in his _History of Architecture_ speaks of _thirty_ great Dravidian
temples to be found in this region, “any one of which must have cost
as much to build as an English cathedral.” I visited three, those of
Mádura, Tanjore, and Chidámbaram; which I will describe, taking that at
Tanjore first, as having the most definite form and plan.
I have already (chap. VII.) given some account of a smaller Hindu
temple. The temples in this region are on the same general plan. There
is no vast interior as in a Western cathedral, but they depend for
their effect rather upon the darkness and inaccessibility of the inner
shrines and passages, and upon the gorgeous external assemblage of
towers and porticos and tanks and arcades brought together within the
same enclosure. At Mádura the whole circumference of the temple is
over 1,000 yards, and at Sri Rungam each side of the enclosure is as
much as half a mile long. In every case there has no doubt been an
original shrine of the god, round which buildings have accumulated,
the external enclosure being thrown out into a larger and larger
circumference as time went on; and in many cases the later buildings,
the handsome outlying gateways or _gópuras_ and towers, have by their
size completely dwarfed the shrine to which they are supposed to be
subsidiary, thus producing a poor artistic effect.
[Illustration: TEMPLE AT TANJORE, GENERAL VIEW.
(_Portico with colossal bull on the right, priests’ quarters among
trees on the left._)]
In the temple at Tanjore the great court is 170 yards long by 85
wide. You enter through a gateway forming a pyramidal structure 40 or
50 feet high, ornamented with the usual carved figures of Siva and
his demon doorkeepers, and find yourself in a beautiful courtyard,
flagged, with an arcade running round three sides, the fourth side
being occupied by priests’ quarters; clumps of coco-palms and other
trees throw a grateful shade here and there; in front of you rises the
great pyramidal tower, or pagoda, 190 feet high, which surmounts the
main shrine, and between the shrine and yourself is an open portico on
stone pillars, beneath which reposes a huge couchant bull, about six
yards long and four yards high, said to be cut from a solid block of
syenite brought 400 miles from the quarries. This bull is certainly
very primitive work, and is quite brown and saturated with constant
libations of oil; but whether it is 2,700 years old, as the people
here say, is another question. The difficulty of determining dates in
these matters is very great; historical accuracy is unknown in this
land; and architectural style gives but an uncertain clue, since it
has probably changed but little. Thus we have the absurdity that while
natives of education and intelligence are asserting on the one hand
that some of these temples are five or even ten thousand years old, the
Western architects assert equally strongly that they can find no work
in them of earlier date than 1000 A.D., while much of it belongs to the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Probably the architects are in the
main right. It is quite probable however that the inner shrines in most
of these cases _are_ extremely old, much older than 1000 A.D.; but they
are so buried beneath later work, and access to them is so difficult,
and if access were obtained their more primitive style would so baffle
chronology, that the question must yet remain undetermined.
Close to the bull is the _kampam_ or flagstaff, and then, beyond, a
flight of steps leading up to the main sanctuary and the tower or
pagoda. The sanctuary is all fine and simple work of red sandstone in
which horizontal lines predominate. At its far end and under the pagoda
would be no doubt the inner shrine or holy of holies--the _vimana_ or
womb of the temple, a cubical chamber, in which the _lingam_ would
be placed. Into these mysteries we did not penetrate, but contented
ourselves with looking at the pagoda from the outside. It is a very
dignified and reposeful piece of work, supposed by Fergusson to belong
to the early part of the fourteenth century; ninety-six feet square at
the base, with vertical sides for about fifty feet, and then gradually
drawing in narrower through thirteen stories to the summit (see plate
at head of this chapter). The red sandstone walls at the base are
finely and quietly paneled, with statues of Siva--not grotesque, but
dignified and even graceful--in the niches. Higher up in the pyramidal
part the statues are fewer, and are mingled with couchant bulls and
flame-like designs composed of multitudinous cobras and conches and
discs (symbols of the god--who is lord of Time, the revolving disc, and
of Space, represented by the sounding conch) in tiers of continually
diminishing size to the summit, where a small dome--said to be also a
single massive block of stone--is surmounted by a golden pinnacle. The
natural red of the stone which forms the lower walls is artificially
deepened in the panels, and the traces of blue and green tints
remaining, together with silvery and brown incrustations of lichen in
the upper parts, give a wonderful richness to the whole. I am afraid
however that the pyramidal structure is not stone, but brick covered
with plaster. The frequency of the bull everywhere throughout this and
other Saivite temples reminds one of the part played by the same animal
in Persian and Egyptian worship, and of the import of the Zodiacal sign
Taurus as a root-element of the solar religions. The general structure
and disposition of these buildings might I should think also recall the
Jewish and Egyptian temples.
All round the base of the great sanctuary and in other parts of the
temple at Tanjore are immense inscriptions--in Telugu, says one of the
Brahmans, but I cannot tell--some very fresh and apparently modern,
others nearly quite obliterated.
The absolute incapacity shown by the Hindus for reasoned observation
in religious matters was illustrated by my guide--who did not in other
respects appear to be at all a stickler for his religion. When he first
called my attention to the pagoda he said, adding to his praise of its
beauty, “Yes, and it never casts a shadow, never any shadow.” Of course
I did not trouble to argue such a point, and as we were standing at the
time on the sunlit side of the building there certainly was no shadow
visible _there_. Presently however--after say half an hour--we got
round to the other side, and were _actually standing in the shadow_,
which was then quite extensive, it being only about 9 a.m., and the
sun completely hidden from us by the pagoda; I had forgotten all about
the matter; when the guide said again and with enthusiasm, “And it has
no shadow.” Then seeing my face (!) he added, “No, this is not the
shadow.” “But,” said I, “it _is_.” “No,” he repeated, “this is not the
shadow of the _pagoda_, for that never casts any shadow”--and then
he turned for corroboration to an old half-naked Brahman standing
by, who of course repeated the formula--and with an air of mechanical
conviction which made me at once feel that further parley was useless.
It might seem strange to any one not acquainted with the peculiarities
of human nature that people should go on perhaps for centuries calmly
stating an obvious contradiction in terms like that, without ever so to
speak turning a hair! But so it is, and I am afraid even we Westerners
can by no means claim to be innocent of the practice. Among the Hindus,
however, in connection with religion this feature is really an awkward
one. Acute and subtle as they are, yet when religion comes on the field
their presence of mind forsakes them, and they make the most wild and
unjustifiable statements. I am sorry to say I have never witnessed a
real good thungeing miracle myself. We have all heard plenty of stories
of such things in India, and I have met various Hindus of ability and
culture who evidently quite believed them, but (although quite willing
and ready-equipped to believe them myself) I have always felt, since
that experience of the shadow, that one “couldn’t be too careful.”
On either side of the great pagoda, and standing separate in the
courtyard, are two quite small temples dedicated, one to Ganésa and the
other to Soubramániya, very elegant, both of them; and one or two stone
_pandals_ or porticos for resting places of the gods in processions.
One can imagine what splendid arenas for processions and festivals
these courts must afford, in which enormous crowds sometimes assemble
to take part in ceremonials similar to that which I have described in
chapter VII. Owing however to former desecrations by the French (who in
1777 fortified the temple itself), and present treatment by the British
Government, this Tanjore temple is not so much frequented as it used to
be. The late Rajah of Tanjore, prior to 1857, supported the place of
course with handsome funds; but the British Government only undertakes
_necessary_ repairs and allows a pension of four rupees a month to the
existing temple servants. They are therefore in a poor way.
The arcade at the far end and down one side of the court is frescoed
with the usual grotesque subjects--flying elephants trampling on
unbelievers, rajahs worshiping the god, women bathing, etc., and is
furnished the whole way with erect stone _lingams_--there must be at
least a hundred of them. These lingams are cylindrical stones a foot
and a half high or so, and eight or nine inches thick, some bigger,
some smaller, standing in sort of oval troughs, which catch the oil
which is constantly poured over the lingams. Women desiring children
pay their offerings here, of flowers and oil, and at certain festivals
these shrines are, notwithstanding their number, greatly in request.
* * * * *
The palace at Tanjore is a very commonplace round-arched whitewashed
building with several courts--in part of which the women-folk of the
late rajah are still living behind their bars and shutters; the whole
place a funny medley of Oriental and Western influences; a court of
justice opening right on to one of the quadrangles, with great oil
paintings of former rajahs; a library; a harness and dress room,
with elephants’ saddles, horses’ head-gear, rajah’s headgear, etc.;
a reception room also quite open to a court, with sofas, armchairs,
absurd prints, a bust of Nelson, and a clockwork ship on a troubled
sea; elephants wandering about in the big court; painted figures of
English officers on the sideposts of one of the gates, and so forth.
Round the palace, and at some little distance from the temple, clusters
the town itself with its narrow alleys and mostly one-storied cottages
and cabins, in which the goldsmiths and workers in copper and silver
repoussé ware carry on their elegant trades.
* * * * *
The ancient city of Mádura, though with a population of 60,000, is
even more humble in appearance than Tanjore. At first sight it looks
like a mere collection of mud cabins--though of course there are
English bungalows on the outskirts, and a court-house and a church
and an American mission-room and school, and the rest. The weavers
are a strong caste here; they weave silk (and cotton) _saris_, though
with failing trade as against the incoming machine-products of
capitalism--and you see their crimson-dyed pieces stretched on frames
in the streets.
The _choultrie_ leading up to one of the temple gates is a colonnade
110 yards long, a central walk and two aisles, with carven monolithic
columns--a warrior sitting on a rearing horse trampling shields of
soldiers and slaying men or tigers, or a huge seated king or god,
in daring crudeness--and great capitals supporting a stone roof.
Choultries were used as public feeding-halls and resting-places for
Brahmans, as well as for various ceremonies, and in old days when
the Brahmans were all-powerful such places were everywhere at their
service, and they had a high old time. This choultrie has however been
turned into a silk and cotton market, and was gay, when I saw it, with
crowds of people, and goods pinned up to the columns. Emerging from
it, the eastern gate of the temple stands on the opposite side of the
road--a huge _gópura_, pagoda form, fifteen stories or so high, each
tier crowded with figures--Siva hideous with six arms and protruding
eyes and teeth, Siva dancing, Siva contemplative, Siva and Sakti on the
bull, demon doorkeepers, etc.--the whole picked out in the usual crude
reds, yellows, greens, blues, and branching out at top into grotesque
dragon-forms--a strange piece of work, yet having an impressive total
effect, as it rises 200 feet into the resplendent sky over the little
mud and thatch cottages--its crude details harmonised in the intense
blaze, and its myriad nooks of shadow haunted by swallows, doves and
other birds.
There are nine such gópuras or gate-towers in all in this temple, all
on much the same plan, ranging from 40 to 200 feet in height, and
apparently used to some extent as dwelling-places by priests, yogis,
and others. These, together with the various halls, shrines, tanks,
arcades, etc., form a huge enclosure 280 yards long by nearly 250 wide.
On entering the huge doorway of the eastern gópura one finds oneself
immediately in a wilderness of columns--the hall of a thousand
columns--besides arcades, courts, and open and covered spaces,--a
labyrinth full of people (for this temple is much frequented)--many
of whom are selling wares, but here more for temple use, flowers
for offerings, cakes of cowdung ashes for rubbing on the forehead,
embroidered bags to put these in, money-changers, elephants here and
there, with bundles of green stuff among the columns, elephant-keepers,
the populace arriving with offerings, and plentiful Brahmans going to
and fro. The effect of the numerous columns--and there are fully a
thousand of them, fifteen feet high or so--is very fine--the light and
shade, glimpses of sky or trees through avenues of carved monsters, or
cavernous labyrinths of the same ending in entire darkness: grotesque
work and in detail often repulsive, but lending itself in the mass
to the general effect--Siva dancing again, or Ganésa with huge belly
and elephant head, or Parvati with monstrous breasts--“all out of one
stone, all out of one stone,” the guide keeps repeating: feats of
marvelous patience (_e.g._ a chain of separate links all cut from the
same block), though ugly enough very often in themselves.
And now skirting round the inner sanctuary to the left, we come into a
sort of cloister opening on a tank some fifty yards square, from whence
we get a more general view of the place, and realise its expanse. The
five or six gópuras visible from our standpoint serve to indicate
this--all painted in strong color but subdued by distance, roofs of
various portions of the temple, clumps of palm and other trees, two
gold-plated turrets shining brilliantly in the sun, the tank itself
with handsome stone tiers and greenish waters where the worshipers
wash their feet, the cloisters frescoed with elaborate legendary
designs, and over all in the blue sky flocks of birds--swallows,
doves, and bright green parrots chattering. Once more we plunge into
dark galleries full of hungry-eyed Brahmans, and passing the shrine
of Minakshi, into which we cannot gain admittance, come into the very
sombre and striking corridor which runs round the entire inner shrine.
The huge monoliths here are carven with more soberness and grace,
and the great capitals bear cross-beams which in their turn support
projecting architraves. Hardly a soul do we meet as we make the circuit
of the three sides. The last turn brings us to the entrance of the
inner sanctuary itself; and here is the gold-plated _kambam_ which I
have already described (chap. VII.), and close behind it the bull Nandi
and the gloom of the interior lit only by a distant lamp or two. To
these inner parts come only those who wish to meditate in quiet; and
in some secluded corner may one occasionally be seen, seated on the
floor with closed eyes and crossed legs, losing or endeavoring to lose
himself in _samádhi_.
Outside the temple in the streets of Mádura we saw three separate
Juggernath cars, used on occasions in processions. These cars are
common enough even in small Hindu towns. They are unwieldy massive
things, often built in several tiers, and with solid wooden wheels
on lumbering wooden axles, which look as if they were put on (and
probably are) in such a way as to cause the maximum of resistance to
motion. At Streevelliputhur there is a car thirty feet high, with
wheels eight feet in diameter. The people harness themselves to these
things literally in thousands; the harder the car is to move, the
greater naturally is the dignity of the god who rides upon it, and the
excitement becomes intense when he is at last fairly got under weigh.
But I have not witnessed one of these processions.
* * * * *
The temple of Chidámbaram is in some respects more interesting than
those of Tanjore and Mádura. It is in fact more highly thought of as
a goal of pilgrimage and a place of festival than any other South
Indian temple, and may be said to be the Benares of South India. The
word Chidámbaram means _region of pure consciousness_, and Siva is
worshiped here under his most excellent name of Nátarája, _lord of the
dance_. “O thou who dancest thy illimitable dance in the heaven of pure
consciousness.”
There is a little railway station of Chidámbaram, but it is two or
three miles from the temple and the town; and though the town itself
numbers some 20,000 to 30,000 inhabitants, there is not a single
Englishman resident in the place or within some miles of it, the only
white-faced inhabitant being a Eurasian druggist who keeps a shop
there. When I was there the whole temple was in course of repair, and
the Brahmans were such a nuisance that I really did not get so good
an idea of the place as I could have wished. These gentry swarm here,
and descend upon one like birds of prey, in quest of tips; indeed the
physiognomy of a great many of them suggests the kite family--sharp
eyes, rather close together, and a thin aquiline nose; this with their
large foreheads looking all the larger on account of the shaven head
does not give a very favorable impression.
The ascendancy of the Brahman caste is certainly a very remarkable
historical fact. It is possible that at one time they really resembled
the guardians of Plato’s ideal republic--teachers and rulers who
themselves possessed nothing and were supported by the contributions
of the people; but before so many centuries had gone by they must have
made the first part of their functions subsidiary to the second, and
now--though a good many of them ply trades and avocations of one kind
or another--the majority are mere onhangers of the temples, where they
become sharers of the funds devoted to the temple services, and bleed
the pockets of pious devotees. When a Hindu of any worldly substance
approaches one of these places, he is immediately set upon by five or
six loafers of this kind--each of whom claims that his is the Brahman
family which has always done the priestly services for the visitor’s
family (and indeed they do keep careful note of these matters), and
that _he_ therefore should conduct the visitor to the proper quarter
of the temple, take his offerings to the god, and receive his reward
accordingly.
This temple is I should think about the same size as that at Mádura,
but more open like the Tanjore temple. There are four gópuras of about
equal size--120 feet high or so--at the four points of the compass.
On entering by the eastern one the hall of a thousand columns stands
away in the court to the right, and gives the idea of a complete temple
in itself. The sides and back end are closed in, but the front forms
a sort of portico, and columns similar to those of the portico--every
one a monolith--extend through the entire interior. There is a lane or
aisle down the middle, and then on each side they stand thick, in rows
perhaps ten feet apart. As you go in the gloom gets deeper and deeper.
Only here and there a gap in the external wall throws a weird light.
The whole suggests a rock cave cut in multitudinous pillars to support
the overlying weight, or a gloomy forest of tree-trunks. But the
columns are commonplace in themselves, and their number and closeness
together under a flat roof of no great weight is not architecturally
admirable. When you reach the interior sanctum, where you might expect
to find the god at home, you discover a mere bare cavity, so dark that
you cannot see the roof, and occupied by innumerable bats who resent
your intrusion with squeaks and shrieks. But my guide explained to me
that twice a year the god _does_ come to dwell there, and then they
clean the place up and decorate it with lamps for a season.
A large tank stands just west of this hall--a tank 200 feet long I
should think--in which men (and women) were washing their feet and
clothes. These tanks are attached to every temple. At Mádura there is
a very beautiful one, “the golden lotus tank,” two miles away from the
temple, with a pagoda on an island in the midst of it--to which they
resort at the Taypúsam festival. Also at Mylapore, Madras, there is a
handsome tank with pagoda just outside the temple; but mostly they are
within the precincts.
[Illustration: TEMPLE AND TANK AT MYLAPORE, MADRAS.]
Entering the inner inclosure at Chidámbaram you come to various arcades
and shrines, where Brahmans and chetties raged. The chetties have great
influence at Chidámbaram; their caste supplies I believe the main funds
of the temple--which is practically therefore in their hands. I was
presented with flower garlands and a lime, and expected to make my
money-offering in front of a little temple, of Vishnu I think, which
they seasonably explained to me was to be roofed with gold! On the
other hand--to the left--was a temple to Siva--both these forms being
worshiped here. Into the shrine of Parvati I did not penetrate, but it
looked ancient and curious. Fergusson says that this shrine belongs
to the 14th or 15th centuries, and the inner sanctuaries to somewhere
about 1000 A.D., while the hall of the thousand columns--which shows
Mahomedan influence--is as late as the 17th century.
An elderly stoutish man, half naked, but with some authority
evidently--who proved afterwards to be the head of the
chetties--announced in a loud voice that I was to be treated with
respect and shown as much as possible--which only meant that I was
to give as large an offering as possible. Then an excited-looking
fellow came up, a medium-sized man of about forty, and began talking
cockney English as fluently and idiomatically as if he had been born
by the Thames, rattling off verses and nursery rhymes with absurd
familiarity. The rest said he was a cranky Brahman with an insane gift
for language--knew Sanskrit and ever so many tongues.
Escaping from these I left the temple and went into the village to see
the goldsmiths who are employed (by the chetties) on work connected
with its restoration. Found a large workshop where they were making
brass roof-pinnacles, salvers, pedestals for images, etc., and
plating the same with gold leaf or plates--also store of solid gold
things--armlets and breastplates for the gods, etc.--another touch
remindful of Greek life. The gold leaf was being beaten out between
thin membranes--many leaves at once--with a hammer. All handwork, of
course.
My guide--who is the station clerk and a Brahman, while his
station-master is a Sudra (O this steam-engine!)--told me on the way
back that the others at the station often advised him to give up his
caste practices; but he had plenty of time in the middle of the day,
between the trains, to go through his ablutions and other ceremonies,
and he did not see why he should not do so.
As we walked along the road we met two pilgrims--with orange-colored
cloths--coming along. One of them, a hairy, wild, and obstinate-looking
old man, evidently spotted the hated Englishman from afar, and as he
passed put his tongue gently but firmly out at me!