Lieut. -Colonel Tod on the Religious Establishments of Mewar. 2S7 



to his imagination ; for though the groves of Vindra,* in which Kaniya 

 disported with the Gojns, no longer resound to the echoes of his flute ; 

 though the waters of the Yamunat are daily polluted with the blood of the 

 sacred kine, still it is the holy land of the pilgrim, the sacred Jordan of his 

 fancy, on whose banks he may sit and weep, as did the banished Israelite 

 of old, the glories of Mat'hura, his Jerusalem ! 



It was in the reign of Arungzebe that the pastoral divinity was exiled 

 from Vrij, that classic soil, which, during a period of two thousand eight 

 hundred years had been the sanctuary of his worshippers. He had been 

 compelled to occasional flights during the visitations of Mahmijd and the 

 first dynasties of Afghan invaders ; tliough the more tolerant of the Mogul 

 kings not only reinstated him, but were suspected of dividing their faith 

 between Kaniya and the prophet. Akber was an enthusiast in the mystic 

 poetry of Jydeva, which paints in rich and glowing colours the loves of 

 Kaniya and Rad'ha, in which lovely personification the refined Hindu 

 abjures all sensual interpretation, asserting its character of pure spiritual 

 love. It affords an example of the Hindu doctrine of the Metempsychosis, 

 as well as of the regard which Akber's toleration had obtained him, to 

 mention, that they held his body to be animated by the soul of a celebrated 

 Hindu gymnosophist: in support of which, they say, he (Akber) went to 

 his accustomed spot of penance (^tapasya) at the confluence of the Yamuna 

 and Ganges, and excavated the implements, viz. the tongs, gourd, and 

 deer-skin, of his anchorite existence. Jehangir, by birth half a Rajput, was 

 equally indulgent to the worship of Kaniya : but Shah Jehan, also the 

 son of a Rajput princess, inclined to tlie doctrines of Siva, in which he 

 was initiated by Sid-rup Sanyasi. Sectarian animosity is more virulent 

 than faiths totally dissimilar. Here we see Hindu depressing Hindu : the 



Mat'hura on the Yamuna (Jumna) ; the remains of this city (Surpuri) tlie author had the plea- 

 sure of discovering. The province of the Siirseni, or Suraseni, is defined by Menu, and par- 

 ticularly mentioned by tlie historians of Alexander. 



* Vindra-vana, or the " forests of Vindra," in which were placed many temples sacred 

 to Kaniya, is on the Yamuna, a fevi miles above Mat'hura. A pilgrimage to this temple is 

 indispensable to the true votary of Crishna. 



f This river is called the Kal Yamuna, or black Yamuna, and Kali-de or the " black pool," 

 from Kaniya having destroyed the hydra Kaliya which infested it. Jydeva calls the 

 Yamuna " the blue daugtdcr (if ihc sun." 



