1878.] 
F. S Growse —Mathura Motes. 
129 
Bas-lila and all the local legends that they involve is traceable to one of the 
Brindaban Gosains at the beginning of the 17th century A. D., viz. Narayan 
Bhatt, a disciple of Krishan Das, Brahmachari, whom Sanatan, the leader 
of the Bengali Yaishnavas in Upper India, ajrpointed the first Pujari of his 
temple of Madan Mohan. The fact, though studiously ignored by the 
Hindus of Mathura, is distinctly stated in the Bhakt-mala, the work which 
they admit to be of paramount authority on such matters. But the scenes 
that I have described carry back the mind of the European spectator to a 
far earlier period and are clearly relics, perhaps the most unchanged that 
exist in any part of the world, of the primitive worship of the powers of 
nature on the return of Spring. Such were the old English merry-makings 
on May Day, and still more closely parallel the Phallic orgies of Imperial 
Borne as described by Juvenal. When I was listening to the din of the 
village band at Bathan, it appeared to be the very scene depicted in the 
lines— 
Plangebant alice proceris tympana palmis, 
Aut tereti tenuis tinnitus sere ciebant, 
Multis raucisonos efflabant cornua bombos, 
Barbaraque horribili stridebat tibia cantu. 
Or again in the words of Catullus : 
Leve tympanum remugit, cava cymbala recrepant, 
Ubi sacra sancta acutis ululatibus agitant, 
Quatiuntque terga tauri teneris cava digitis. 
While the actors in the chaupai , with dagger in hand, recalled the 
pictures of the Corybantes or Phrygian priests of Cybele, the very persons 
to whom the poet refers. In Greece the Indian Holi found its equivalent 
in the Dionysia, when the phallus, the symbol of the fertility of nature, was 
borne in procession, as it now is here, and when it was thought a disgrace 
to remain sober. In like manner the Gosains and other actors in the In¬ 
dian show are quite as much inspired in their frenzied action by their 
copious preliminary libations as by the excitement of the scene and the 
barbarous music of the drums, cymbals and timbrels that accompany them. 
Mathura, April 6th, 1877. 
Postscript. 
1. Recent Archaeological Discoveries. 
Since my transfer from the district, the mound adjoining the Magis¬ 
trate’s Court-house, which has often been explored before with valuable 
results, has been completely levelled as a Famine relief work. A large 
number of miscellaneous sculptures have been discovered, of which I have 
received no definite description. But the more prominent object is a life- 
size statue of Buddha, which is said to be very finely executed and also in 
R 
