382 TRAVEL, ADVEXTUKE, AND SPOET. 



may never have heard of it before. It is Girnar, or 

 the Lord of Mountains, also called the Sin-destroying 

 Mount, the Mount of Safety, the Golden Mount, the 

 Overshadowing Mount, and by many other similar 

 names. High up on its first peak, above a stupen- 

 dous precipice, and at a height of nearly 3000 feet, 

 there is a series of magnificent and beautiful temples, 

 sacred to the religion of the Jains a corrupt form 

 of Biidhism and one of which contains their famous 

 Perspiring Statue. On the summit of that peak there 

 is a temple containing a most ancient and sacred 

 Hindu image or rather stone, the Amba Mata or 

 Mother of Gods. The peaks beyond have sacred 

 shrines to which hundreds of thousands of pilgrims 

 yearly ascend. Hundreds of naked devotees be- 

 smeared with paint or ashes are scattered over this 

 mountain, exposing themselves to almost incredible 

 hardships. Its last peak, the Dread Mother, shunned 

 by pilgrims, is sacred to Kali or Diirga, the blood- 

 stained spouse of Siva the Destroyer ; and that peak, 

 with the jungle at its base, is infested by the worst of 

 all devotees Aghoras, who live on carrion and human 

 flesh, and shun the face of mankind. 



Looking up to Girnar from Jiinaghar or its neigh- 

 bourhood, this mountain appears as one lofty, ribbed, 

 and apparently inaccessible peak, of a grey pink and 

 cream colour, from the granite, quartz, and other 

 primitive rocks of which it is composed, and it pre- 

 sents this appearance all the way up from the sea ; 



