Compiled by London swaminathan

Date: 22 May 2016

Post No. 2831

Time uploaded in London :–   20-37

( Thanks for the Pictures)

DON’T REBLOG IT AT LEAST FOR A WEEK!  DON’T USE THE PICTURES; THEY ARE COPYRIGHTED BY SOMEONE.

(for old articles go to tamilandvedas.com OR swamiindology.blogspot.com)

Excerpt from the book ‘India Revisited’ by Edwin Arnold, year 1886

“No towns of any importance are passed until the traveller arrives at Madura, one of the most celebrated cities of the ancient kingdom of the Regio Pandionis.

Madura, “the place of amenity”, according to its Sanskrit derivation, lies on the high road to Rameswaram, the sacred island of the Straits, and thus must have become very early as a famous site, full of schools, temples and palatial buidings.

One prince of the Nayak dynasty is said to have here erected or commenced 96 shrines, of which those that remain are striking examples of the religious architecture of India.

Temple of Minakshi or the Fish Eyed Parvati has nine large and small pagodas on its sides and angles. Four of them are of great height, soaring aloft in the form of sharp pyramids, covered from base to summit with stages of elaborately sculptured figures in stone, which have been minutely and ingeniously coloured, and stand forth from a ground of red – so that each gopuram looks like a mountain of bright and shifting hues, in the endless detail of which the stonished vision becomes lost. Range after range of gods, goddesses, heroes, and demons, in vivid tents, and with all their jewels and weapons dazzlingly brought out by gold and ochres, are seen mounting into  the air from the pillared basement where horses ramp and elephants twist their trunks, to the volutes at the top all blue and green and gold. Imagine four of these carved and decorated pyramidal pagodas, each equally colossal and multi coloured, with five minor ones clustering near, any one of which would singly make a town remarkable!

The interior of this vast temple is full of picturesque courts and dimly lighted aisles, where numberless bats flit about among the lamps, and figures of the wildest fancy glimmer through the obscurity. We were not allowed – being known here only as passing travellers – to enter the very holy places of the building, and thus failed to see the “Tank of the Golden Lotuses” and the famous “Bench of Jewels”. This latter, if accounts be true, was a marvellous possession of the shrine. The candidate for election to the Synod of the college, after satisfactorily replying to his examination questions, was told to seat himself on the bench. If he were a worthy aspirant it expanded of itself from a mere knife- edge of a blue granite to  a commodious seat set with diamonds; if unworthy, the bench collapsed altogether, at the same time flinging the rejected  novice into the tank.

According to old legends, the useful institution came into disuse about the year 1028 AD, when a Pariah priest presented himself for ordination, bringing a remarkably clever Sanskrit poem. The proud ecclesiastics of Madura had grown idle and ignorant, and would have driven this humble  yet learned aspirant forth; but he was no other than the God Shiva himself in disguise,  who had come to claim admission to his own Sangha; and the Bench of Jewels expanded joyously  to accommodate the deity. The story goes that, , on beholding this condemnation of their order, the priests filled out one by one and drowned themselves respectfully in the tank of the Golden Lotuses.

Madura is a clean and well-kept city, full of many other interesting buildings and of picturesque combinations of palm grove and bazaar life which would delight an artist. In its streets may be  constantly seen, yoked ‘ekas’ and carts, those charming little  Guini bullocks, milk white and perfectly proportioned , but diminutive beyond belief. I saw one of them in the garden of Mr De Souza, at Colombo, which was a bull, as symmetrical as any short-horn sire of the Bates breed, and yet positively no bigger than a mastiff or Mount st. Bernard. I tried to buy some of these to bring home, but those offered were not of the true caste; and the man who had the better specimens encountered an evil omen on his way to my quarters. You must not do any business in India, if you meet with a one eyed person, an empty water pot, a fox, a hare, or a dead body!

Madura also produces the finest scarlet-dyed cloths in India – a distinction attributed to the virtues of the water of the River Vyga. In one of her streets is, moreover, to be seen a very simple, but a pleasing monument, recording the gratitude of the inhabitants to a former collector, Mr Black Burne.

This is a pillar of stone, of no architectural merit, but erected to perpetuate the name and virtues of the meritorious British official who transformed Madura from foetid and plague-stricken city to one which has become wholesome, aggregable, and handsome in aspect beyond most Indian towns. Every night a lamp is lighted upon his memorial, and it is only one of a thousand proofs of the benefits conferred upon India by the just and conscientious English rule, as well as of the solid appreciation felt for that rule by best minds among the natives.

“Political Mischief Mongers”

Political mischief mongers who talk at home or in India, of the discontent and ill will of her inhabitants towards the British are either ignorant or malignant. I have recently passed through hundreds of her towns and cities, and over thousands of miles of her districts – often wandering alone in crowded bazaars or solitary jungles — and have not encountered a single evil look or received one rude or unfriendly answer.  In conversation with intelligent people of all caste and classes I have found the blessings of our  strong and upright sway perfectly understood, and repaid — not, indeed, with affection, since that is asking too much from Hindu natures – but with respect, admiration, and general acquiescence. There are classes, of course, which will always remain hostile, and India is an ocean of humanity, about the various seas, gulfs and inlets of which no man can ever securely generalise. Yet I am personally convinced by observation and inquiry that the roots of our Raj – despite al drawbacks and perils – were never so deeply struck into the soil as at present, and that while we must strive more and more to develop the boundless resources of the country, and to win the hearts of her people by fearless, but wise and gradual expansion of their rights and liberties, India at large knows well that she has never received from Heaven aa richer blessing than the Pax Britannica”.

(Even scholars like Edwin Arnold justified the “just” and “conscientious” British Rule!!!)

Many of the things he has said about Madura(i) are also factually incorrect—London swaminathan.

–subham–