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CHAPTER II.

No end of idols and temples in Brindabun-passed a whole morning, and still visited not more than a fourth of them. The idols are the same everywhereKaniya, with Radha on his left, and Nullita on the right. The temples, adorned with elaborate carvings upon stone, are all costly buildings, but without much variety. Krishna appears to number almost every Hindoo prince among his followers. There is the temple of the Rajah of Jeypore as well as of his Ranee and of his favourite mistress, of the Rajah of Bhurtpoor and of his Ranee, of Scindia, of Holkar, of the Rajah of Dinajpore, of the Rajah of Burdwan, and of many other potentates. The dignity of these shrines is maintained by rich endowments and grants, besides the donations of pilgrims. The daily expenditure in one or two of them is 100 rupees, and in none less than 10 rupees. In all these religious foundations, the pershad, or the food offered to the god, forms the sinecure livelihood of that floating population of ascetics and mendicants by whom the place is crowded in all seasons, and who by the lowest estimate would not number less than two thousand souls. There are hangers-on, who

are insured of their food for their lifetime under especial recommendations.

The second in the trio of gods is Gopinath, or the Lord of the Gopinees. This also is a substitute in place of the original penate, which had to be removed away from the reach of Aurungzebe. There is nothing in the statue of the Lord of the Gopinees to indicate that surpassing beauty of Krishna, by which he captivated the hearts, not only of rural damsels, but of the Princesses of ancient Hind. The poet does him more justice than the artist. In vain we endeavoured to recognize any charms which the statue is said to possess. The dull cold figure betrays a most defective conception, and is void of any expresssion. The features are hard and utterly meaningless-being hit off without the slightest stamp of that amorous ardency which should characterize the countenance of the Lord of the Gopinees. It is a sad mistake of the sculptor to have chosen principally to exercise his skill upon black marble. The mind and manners of Krishna must have had more to do in winning feminine hearts than his light azure complexion, which the artist has been so anxious above all to perpetuate. Krishna is described to have had the perfection of the male figure, 'such as he appears to young female imaginations-heroic, beautiful, breathing music from his very eyes, and exalting the religion of his worshippers into love.' To have executed a likeness of him, the sculptor should have modelled the beau ideal of the male figure-a Phidian image of the Indian Apollo, and then at least could Hindoo idolatry have

boasted to have developed the beautiful in art, and accomplished a triumph for its apology. The size of the image also should have been of the standard of life-its diminutiveness degrades it into a doll.

In like manner, the statue of Radha, intended as a personification of all that is elegant, graceful, and beautiful in the other sex, is a complete failure. Though moulded into a slender form, the stiff metal has anything but realized the figure of the graceful sylphide who was the pearl in the ocean of Heri's mortal birth.' Her face appears not to smile with complacency on her best-beloved. The 'fawn-eyed Radha' of the poet has in the image eyes staring upon the pilgrim, rather than 'gazing upon the bright face of Krishna.' These are not only artistic but also historic faults in the statue. Care has been taken, however, to preserve historic truth

in staining the eyes with antimony'-in 'placing a circle of musk on the forehead '-in 'intertwining a chaplet of flowers and peacock's feathers in the dark tresses' -in girding the waist with 'a zone of bells'—and in wearing on the ankles. 'rings which tinkled when sporting in the dance.' The costume and adornments of the image help to give an idea of the toilet of a Hindoo lady in the fifteenth century before Christ.

The affairs of Gopinath are now at the lowest ebb. His property is all under mortgage, and he is over head and ears in debt. The mutiny, having put a stop to all pilgrimage from Bengal, has brought him to this pass. Brindabun is annually visited by more than ten thousand Bengalees, from whose contributions the gods

of Vrij draw their principal support. Not one has come in during the last three years. Now that tranquillity has been restored, they are in great hopes of seeing the god out of his difficulties. Much is expected, also, from the opening of the Railway. But pilgrims, then pouring in tenfold or twentyfold numbers, will find disenchanted Vrij to have lost many of the attractions that are lent by distance.

Just as much as the mild doctrines of Kaniya differ from the dark rites of Shiva, is the Jumna distinguished in its features from those of the Ganges. Not only does the former river revive the memory of a renowned antiquity, but its shores likewise present to our view the theatre of the miracles of a famous religion. To an orthodox Hindoo, the Jumna is endeared by a thousand tender and sacred associations. The banks of that stream are fancied to be the sunny land of love and song-the scene of celestial events played upon earth. On those banks, he likes to sit and dream over the days of pastoral Vrij. But on the grassy margin where Kaniya pastured kine, or on the smooth, hardened sand where he wandered arm-in-arm with Radha, are now massive structures and ghauts of stone, scarcely harmonizing with pastoral reminiscences. Here and there, an antique banyan or embowering neem overhangs the stream, and old Kalindi is all that yet continues to flow on, outliving the perishable records of man, and producing in the soul feelings and ideas which no other river is capable of exciting.

The ghauts in Benares are not less various than in

Brindabun. There is the Kaisee-ghaut, the most noted of all, where Krishna, while yet a mere boy, slew Kaisee, a Dwaita of gigantic strength, sent by Kunsa to take away his life. The anniversary of that exploit is still observed with great festivities. By pilgrims, a dip in this ghaut is thought to be highly meritorious. Immediately over the spot where the miracle was performed now towers a lofty and rich temple, with a ghaut the steps of which, built of red sandstone, descend several feet into the water.

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Next in rank is the spot where Krishna killed Bukasoor, or the demon who had come from his uncle to destroy him, disguised as a crane. The bird sat laying its enormous beaks that touched heaven and earth, so that his mouth seemed as it were a great gap in the latter, to the shepherds who were tending their cattle along the river-bank. In they unconsciously walked to the stomach of the crane. But wary Krishna at once detected the foe, and, following in the steps of his playmates, stuck like an obstinate fish-bone at the throat of the bird, and kicking up a rumpus in his stomach, at last tore him asunder in two by his beaks. This feat also is annually commemorated by an effigy to bring grist to the mill of the Vrij-bashees.*

The Bushter-hurun tree that they showed us, of small size, with tender twigs and branches, is quite a sham—

* Kunsa seems to us to be the myth of an ancient Buddhist king of Muttra, who opposed the rise and spread of the worship of Krishna. The early miracles of that god allude but to the discouragements under which his religion laboured in the beginning, and over which it one by one triumphed.