1837.] condition of Oujein or Uj jay ani. 823 



pies of Siva are sometimes concealed in elegant sculpture or shrouded 

 by the veil of time, and we are tempted in our love for the arts or the 

 antique to be indulgent to the errors of an interesting superstition. 

 But the daubs now before us can only have originated in the wanton- 

 ness of a diseased imagination, and the disgust with which we view 

 them is increased by their freshness, for the place which ought to be 

 thrown down, was built only a short time ago by some miserable babu. 

 It is pleasing to turn from such a scene to a beautiful gh£t a few 

 paces further on, which together with a small but elegant temple of 

 Gungd does credit to the taste of Rukma Bai' the widow of Mal- 

 colm's friend Tantia Jogh. In the back ground groves and gardens 

 enrich the scene : under the tall trees of the first, numerous tombs 

 and satti chabutras add a pleasing solemnity to the scene. The pro- 

 duce of the latter feeds the goddess or her priest. 



The ghat has been sacred for time untold. Its ancient name, Das 

 aswamedh, might seem to imply that the ceremony of supremacy had 

 been ten times performed here. Perhaps the Das aswamedhas were 

 nothing more than the sacrifice of a horse at the termination or open- 

 ing of some campaign ; or we may suppose, and with greater probabi- 

 lity, that the title was borrowed from some other quarter as ghats of 

 this name are not unfrequent, as at Allahabad, Bittour, and if I 

 mistake not Gayd. A little further on but away from the river Jnk-pdt 

 appears, a place dear to the lovers of Krishna ; for here the Indian 

 Apollo and his brother Baldeo were taught their letters by Sandi'pan, 

 and exhausted in the short space of 64 days, the whole learning of the 

 Vedas. The kund in which they washed their taktas*, derives its name of 

 Ddmodara from a story told in the Bhdgawat. Krishna thirsty one day 

 from rambling about in that hottest of places, Vrij, requested a draught 

 of milk from a Gopi who was churning. The good-natured girl left 

 her work, and ran to fetch some, which she had placed to smoke on a 

 fire hard by, but unhappily, it had all boiled over. The impatient and 

 disappointed god overturned the curds. Enraged at such return for 

 her civility, the Gopi seized hold of her rude guest, but in vain she 

 tried to bind him ; no string, however long, would encircle the mocking 

 god, and when at length she thought him secured, Krishna ran 

 away with his arms fast to his sides, and was thence called Ddmodara 

 or the waist-tied. Two templesf built on the brink of the kund, 

 deserve notice for the excellence of their sculpturing. Figures of 



* Ank-p&t, ciphering — as taught to a child. 



f Hunter describes them, he saw their interior but during my visit the doors 

 were locked and the brahman had gone to a fair. 

 5 m 2 



