ANECDOTE OF TRIMAL NAIG. 
53 
they worked is taken into account. Their execution 
of the figures is extremely clean, and, save where the 
rude hand of spoliation has defaced them, they are 
nearly as perfect as at the first moment of their com- 
pletion. The stubborn nature of the matter from which 
they were shaped has been their security against the 
ravages of time. 
The view exhibited in the engraving represents half 
the length of the area between the two central rows 
of columns. On the second pillar, to the right of the 
spectator as he faces the door at the bottom, is the 
figure of Trimal Naig, the founder of this gorgeous 
structure, in a group with six of his wives, three on 
one side and three on the other, to whom, on account 
of their lord’s munificence, the Hindoos continue to 
pay divine honours, as well as to himself. Of the 
principal wife in the front group a fact is recorded 
which will convey some idea of the wealth and mag- 
nificence of eastern Princes : she was daughter of the 
Rajah of Tanjore, a Prince who possessed immense 
treasure and exercised a prodigal liberality. 
When the choultry was finished, upon which Tri- 
mal Naig had lavished an enormous sum of money, 
he conducted his wife into it with a certain air of os- 
tentation, as if he expected she would be struck by 
the extraordinary grandeur of the edifice. Upon his 
asking her what she thought of it, she coldly cast her 
eyes around, and told him, with an unmoved coun- 
tenance, that it was far inferior in splendour to her 
father’s stables. This mortifying declaration so exas- 
perated the royal husband, that he instantly drew a 
dagger from his girdle and plunged it into her thigh. 
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