But to the sinners Yama appears in a gigantic and terrific shape, with black complexion and eyes vast as lakes. His nostrils breathe fire. His bristling hairs stand out long and thick like rushes. His deep voice sounds like the thunder of the Last Day.

He

is mounted on a ferocious buffalo, and holds a mighty club in his hand.

When the souls have enjoyed their bliss, or suffered their allotted punishment, they are again re-incarnated on earth to fulfil the remainder of their karma.

This belief in the efficacy of Shradhas is often the source of reckless expenditure bringing ruin upon Hindu families. For not only do the dead require assistance in their pilgrimage to Yama's kingdom, but for three generations afterwards they are supposed to need the attention of their descendants. Moreover, the mantras and ceremonies performed at certain holy places are believed to have the power of mitigating the penalties for sins committed in this life, an idea sedulously fostered by the Brahmin priests, though it is absolutely inconsistent with their own teaching of the law of karma.

With this digression we will return to the Panchkôsi road. The sixth and last stage of the pilgrimage is from Kapildhara to Barna Sangam, and thence along the ghâts to the starting - place, Manikarnika. On this day the pilgrims carry bags of barley, from which they scatter grain all along the route, as an oblation to Shiva. Arriving at Manikarnika, they bathe in the river and give presents to the Brahmins. Finally they proceed to the temple of Sâkhi-Vinayak, the witnessbearing Ganêsha, to have the fact of the pilgrimage attested by the priest, in presence of the deity.

CHAPTER XI

REMAINS OF OLD BENARES-A HINDU-MUHAMMADAN RIOT-—A WEAVERS' COLONY

A thorough examination by trained archæologists of the ruins and fragments of sculpture which are scattered about Benares and built into modern shrines and temples might throw much light on the ancient history of the city. Hitherto this work has been left chiefly to Europeans without sufficient critical knowledge of Hindu art, whose judgment has been biassed by a fixed idea that nearly everything old in Benares is of Buddhist origin. Sherring, while recognizing the probability of many of the antiquities of the city being of Brahminical or Jain origin, is too much inclined to attribute to Buddhists every ancient column with a plain bracket capital and every stone carved with the lotus flower.

Fergusson's review of Indian architectural styles, admirable though it is, stands in need of explanation and modification in the light of recent knowledge. In his time it was hardly realized that Buddhism was only an offshoot of Hinduism, which grew up in India, flourished, and decayed side by side with dozens of other sects of even older origin, some of which, like the Jains, were most active builders.

The artistic study of Indian sculpture, like that of

Indian painting, has hardly yet been commenced, though there is much of extreme interest to the artist, as well as to the archeologist, in both. It is very unlikely that rapid progress will be made in this direction until Indians of education and means learn the profound truth of Emerson's well-known aphorism, "Art is Nature passed through the alembic of man"; and until they begin to realize that, unless they understand and appreciate the value of the presentment of Nature their own artist-alchemists have given them, nothing that they see through European spectacles has any artistic value or meaning for them.

In the meantime, while Indian art is fast decaying beyond all hope, it is left to a few Europeans to attempt the solution of problems which to competent Indians should be comparatively easy.

Scattered about Benares in odd corners, and placed under pippal and banian trees for worship, are numbers of miniature temples elaborately carved in single blocks of stone, and all of them with the characteristic Hindu sikra or curvilinear spire. Some of them are multiple shrines, that is, carved all over with numerous minute representations of temples, all of the same shape. The popular tradition about these is that Raja Mân Singh of Jaipur made a vow to present 100,000 temples to the city, and ordered them to be commenced and finished in one day. In order to accomplish this extraordinary architectural feat they were all carved in miniature.

The tale is obviously a Brahminical invention. These stones seem to be votive shrines of a very much earlier time than Mân Singh, who lived at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Many of them

are of the early Buddhist period, and numbers of them are now being dug up in the neighbourhood of Sarnath. They are not, however, Buddhist, but dedicated to various Hindu deities. The Deer-park at Sarnath was, as we know, a retreat, or kind of sacred grove, where religious devotees of all sects met.

The most interesting of the ruined buildings of ancient Benares now existing are those which have been appropriated by the Muhammadans. At the back of the mosque of Aurangzib, near the Golden Temple, is a fragment of what must have been a very imposing Brahminical or Jain temple. The south wall of the mosque is built into it. Tradition points to this as being part of the original temple of Vishweshwar destroyed by Aurangzib. From the style it would appear to belong to the time of Akbar, or about the

beginning of the sixteenth century. The raised terrace in front of the mosque is built upon some very much older structure, which Sherring suggests might have been a Buddhist vihâra or temple-monastery. This, however, is mere conjecture. On equally substantial grounds it might be supposed to be one of the public halls for the discussion of philosophical and religious subjects which existed in Buddhist and pre-Buddhist times. It is quite possible that the whole quadrangle in which the mosque stands originally contained a number of Brahminical, or perhaps Jain, temples and monasteries of many different periods, such as are often found grouped together in places considered especially sacred by any sect of Hindus. In the northern side of the city there are several Muhammadan mosques which have been built out of the remains of old Jain, Buddhist, or Brahminical temples or monasteries. The most interesting and picturesque of these is opposite to Kâsi railway-station. The Muhammadans, in converting it to their own use about one hundred and twenty years ago, gave it a symmetry suggestive of a Greek or Roman temple.

There are several other mosques of the same kind in the same part of the city. The Arhâi Kangûra mosque is a large one in the quarter bearing that name, constructed in the same way from abandoned or demolished Hindu or Buddhist buildings. In the roof of the second story a slab is inserted, upon which is a long Sanskrit inscription, and the date 1191 A.D., showing that it originally belonged to a Hindu temple or monastery. The Muhammadans, iconoclasts as they were, have been more respectful to ancient art in Benares than British utilitarians like the district