242 MOONLIGHT GARDENS 



tributing them among friends in different parts 

 of India. 



Of all Hindu sects the Jains are the nearest to 

 the Buddhists of ancient India in their keen 

 sense of the universal indwelling soul of things ; 

 and the Jains and Vaeshnavas, more than other 

 Hindus, set store by their gardens. Nearly all 

 the bankers and rich merchants of Western India 

 belong to one or the other of these divisions of 

 Hinduism. It cannot be said that they are now 

 strict in laying out their actual gardens in accord- 

 ance with their paradisiacal ideal of them, and 

 so long as their garden is a paradise to their soul 

 and their spiritual eye, they are not so particular 

 as were the Mughals about its being truly " four 

 square." 



In the same way, when the Hindu princes and 

 wealthy merchants build their great mansions 

 and palaces with their numerous arched openings, 

 they delight to call them " the chaurasi," a name 

 derived from the number eighty-four, a multiple 

 of twelve (the number of the signs of the 

 zodiac) by seven (the number of the planets) ; 

 but the particular palace may have only fifty or 

 sixty openings in reality. This number, eighty- 

 four, is a most sacred one with Hindus and 



