A PILGRIMAGE TO AMERNATH 



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likened roughly to nave, 

 choir, and sanctuary of 

 a cathedral, and two 

 side chapels, one to the *% 

 north and the other to <£»£$& 

 the south. Of these lat- 

 ter only a small portion 

 of two walls remains. 



Steps on the west for- 

 merly led up to the en- 

 trance to the nave of the 

 main temple, which was 

 surmounted by a magni- 

 ficent trefoil arch. The 

 steps are now little more 

 than a mound of earth. 

 On the other sides of the 

 temple are similar trefoil 

 arches with huge closed 

 doorways below. 



The interior walls of 

 the nave and choir are 

 richly ornamented with 

 carvings of gods, lotus 

 flowers, and other de- 

 signs. The pediment is 

 considerably in evidence. 



On the left wall of the 

 nave, as you enter, are 

 carvings of Kali, Brah- 

 ma, and Vishnu ; to the 

 right, Suraj, Lakshmi, 

 and Surati. A carved 

 frieze probably three 

 feet wide surrounds it. The inner room, 

 or sanctuary, where the sacred lingam 

 used to be, is quite bare. Water was 

 originally brought from the hill at the 

 back for the purposes of worship, and 

 the drain which carried it off can still be 

 seen on the outside. 



BUILT BY A RACE: OF GIANTS, 

 KASHMIRIS 



The gray walls rise 40 feet above the 

 foundation and are open to the sky. It 

 is believed that Alartand in the beginning 

 had a pyramidal roof, and that the whole 

 was nearly double its present height. 

 Some stones in the walls are from three 

 to eight yards long, one to five wide, and 

 one yard thick. Is it any wonder that 

 the Kashmiris insist that a race of giants 

 built this famous shrine ; for they say, 

 "How else could such huge blocks have 

 been raised so high ?" 



How, when, by whom seem to be mat- 



Photograph by A. Hodgson 



THE AGILE HOMES OE ElSHMAKAM : KASHMIR 



This picturesque village climbs the craggy slopes of a steep 

 hill in a way that suggests nimble-footed inhabitants of the 

 mountaineer type. 



ters of conjecture. Some say, as early as 

 3000 B. C, Ramadeva founded a large 

 city called Babul on the plateau of vlar- 

 tand, in which there were eleven lakhs 

 of houses (a lakh is 100,000), and that 

 he built a temple at this time. 



The present structure is supposed to 

 date from the first half of the fifth cen- 

 tury A. D., while the cloisters were 

 erected 300 years later. How, when, or 

 by whom? What difference does it 

 make, when one is under the spell of the 

 beauty and majesty of this magnificent 



SAY THE 



ruin ? For the moment the present ceases 

 to exist, and the mind wanders back to 

 the dim ages of the past, when this pla- 

 teau was the scene of a busy life and 

 devotees crowded to the shrine to sprinkle 

 water on the sacred symbol of Siva and 

 crown it with a garland of flowers. 



Today the temple stands like a lonely 

 sentinel overlooking the silent fields — "a 

 monument of Hindu taste in what it was 



