FIGURES OF BHIMA 125 they produced a printed form from the municipality demanding payment of the water-rate, and requested my help in mitigating the severity of the authorities. towards their peaceful hermitage. The founder of the math, Lakhi Baba, perhaps one of the Dîwans of Chêt Singh, lies buried under a mango-tree at the entrance. We will leave Shivâla Ghât and its fine old fort for a time, and proceed farther up the river. From Bachraj Ghât up to Asi Sangam the shooting of birds and catching of fish are forbidden out of respect for the feelings of the Jains, who have several temples along this part of the river. As with the Buddhists, the doctrine of the sacredness of all life is an important principle of the Jain faith. Probably along this part of the ghâts we shall pass several rude, colossal mud figures of Bhîma, one of the Pândava brothers in the Mahâbhârata, stretched full length on the ground. The story which explains why Bhima is worshipped for the last five days of the month of Kartik is as follows:- Bhîma was a man of enormous size and strength, and had a correspondingly prodigious appetite. Like a good Hindu, he wished to worship Krishna in the month of Kartik, but found the fasting so irksome that he begged Krishna to relax the rule in his favour. To accommodate the hungry giant, Krishna agreed that if Bhima would fast for the last five days of the month he should be granted the merit which attached to the whole month's fasting, and, further, as a special mark of favour, that those who worshipped Bhîma the last five days of Kartik should gain the same merit. In this month there will also be many high pedestals of clay, on which are placed for worship sprigs of the sacred basil (ocymum sanctum), or tulasi, Vishnu's plant, as it is Vishnu in his Krishna incarnation who is specially worshipped in Kartik. The tulasi was, says the legend, a woman of Brindâban, who loved Krishna so passionately, that at last she threw herself into the flames of a suttee's pyre. Krishna then transformed her into the sacred plant, and directed that it should always be worshipped as part of his own puja. At Asi Sangam we reach the southern limit of Benares. From the other side of the little stream from which the ghât takes its name, the Panch-kôsi road begins to wind through the cornfields. We will now return downstream to Man Mandil Ghât, just below Dasâsamedh. The great building fronting this ghât is the oldest of the palaces in Benares, having been built by Man Singh, Raja of Amber, and ancestor of the present Maharaja of Jaipur, about the year 1600 A.D. It was a very fine specimen of the architecture of that period, and the beautiful stone balcony, which is the chief feature of the present façade, is part of the original work. Unfortunately, the greater part of the building fell into ruin, and about the middle of the last century was restored with brick and plaster of a very inferior style. A picture by Daniell, now in the rooms of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta, shows the original façade as built by Man Singh. The palace was converted into an observatory in 1693 by the great Hindu astronomer, Raja Jai Singh, a descendant of Man Singh, who was employed by the Mogul emperor, Muhammad Shah, to correct the |