CHAPTER III.

The sun went down in glory, and smiled upon its own land when it withdrew behind the ocean, as if unwilling longer to look upon the griefs with which the world that had so lately glowed with its pure vivid light was encumbered. Evening suddenly flung her shadows over the city of Somnat, but the stars sparkled in the purple concave of heaven like children of joy, imparting a beautiful relief to the grave solemnity of night.

At rather a late hour the melancholy wife quitted the side of her husband, whose malady had not abated, and repaired to the magnificent temple of Somnat, at that time the most celebrated in Hindostan. It stood upon an elevated part of the town, and covered a vast space of ground. It was a ponderous edifice, exhibiting that elaborate detail of ornament combined with massive grandeur peculiar to the early Hindoo temples. Within, it consisted of one vast aisle several hundred feet long, the roof supported on either side by magnificent columns, ornamented even to superfluity with sculpture, each column detailing an episode from the Mahabarat. Every pillar was cut from a single block of granite, elaborated with an accuracy of touch, and a justness of proportion, not exceeded by any monuments of ancient art, save those of Greece. The light was admitted through a vast dome in the centre, beneath which the huge idol stood like a Colossus, casting one unvarying expression of grim insensibility upon its prostrate but humble adorers. The figure was of stone, clumsily wrought into a monstrous form. The head was ornamented with gems of prodigious value, similar gems being likewise fixed in every pillar of the temple. Its eyes were formed of two rubies of such transcendent lustre as to inspire the worshippers with a holy awe when they prostrated themselves before this hideous image.

There were no lights used in the temple at night except one pendent lamp, the light of which being reflected from the jewels in the idol’s head, and from those fixed in the various columns that adorned the sacred edifice, spotted the whole area witha dazzling gleam which appeared the effect of superhuman agency.[2]

The most costly offerings were daily made to this factitious divinity, but the depository of its immense wealth was a secret, as the Brahmins pretended, known only to the deity to whom it had been dedicated. On two sides of the temple were various apartments occupied by the functionaries of the sanctuary, which no persons were permitted to enter, save those to whose habitation they had been especially appropriated. Strange and mysterious events were said frequently to take place within those secret and forbidden retreats, supposed to be hallowed by the holy lives of their spiritual occupants.

The Brahmin who had recently visited the invalid had an apartment near the shrine, and was one of the officiating priests in this fane of superstition, where, under the mask of religion, the most revolting abominations were nightly practised. Like the Eleusinian mysteries, they were hidden from the public eye, as only fit to be witnessed by those whom it would seem to have been thought that vice had sanctified.

With a resolved but throbbing heart the beautiful Hindoo wife entered within the black narrow portal of this gorgeous but gloomy structure. The lower part of the edifice was involved in a shadowy light which imparted a cavernous solemnity to this house of a most unholy worship. The huge idol rose amid the distance surrounded by a blaze of light that filled the dome in which the colossal image stood, but did not extend far enough to pierce the distant gloom.

As she stalked forward with a measured pace, the monstrous figures surrounding the columns seemed to glare upon her from their granite pedestals like so many petrified ogres. Her heart throbbed with emotion. The object of her visit at this dark hour of night rose to her memory with an impetuous impulse, whilst the associations of the gloom of the grave, and that of the consecrated edifice which she had now entered for the purpose of propitiating a deaf and dumb idol for the benefit of a departing soul, and to arrestthe summons of death, sent a chill through the whole mass of her blood which seemed to reach and congeal the very fountain of life. When she reached the dome there was not a person but herself that she could perceive in the sanctuary. The light of the solitary lamp hanging from the centre of the dome was reflected from thousands of brilliant gems which cast a radiance around the figure of intense and dazzling brilliancy. She prostrated herself before the image, and poured the full tide of her heart’s emotions in a prayer for the restoration of her husband.

A general belief prevailed among the Hindoos of that part of the country that souls after death were summoned before the Idol of Somnat, which transported them into other bodies according to their merits in this life, where he became a sort of Hindoo Rhadamanthus, resembling that infernal justiciary, however, in nothing less than in the rigid impartiality of his justice. It was also declared by the Brahmins belonging to this celebrated temple, that the ebb and flow of the tides represented the reverence paid by the ocean to this shrine.

Having paid her devotions, the supplicant approached the base of the idol, and laid a handful of gold upon it; for her husband was wealthy, and the god of Somnat never heard a vow that was not accompanied by an offering. She prayed that her husband might be spared to her; or, if the slender thread of his destiny was already spun, that his soul might be transferred into a nobler body, and be thus advanced one step nearer to that final and beatific state of absorption so anxiously desired by all faithful Hindoos. As she concluded, there was a strange unearthly sound heard from within the image; the eyes seemed to glow with more intense brightness, and when she rose from her posture of prostration, to her surprise the aged Brahmin who had lately visited her husband stood before her. She looked upon him, however, without apprehension, feeling herself in the presence of an omnipotent agent, and not entertaining a thought, in the innocence of her pure heart, that the altar of deity could be polluted by the most licentious impurities.

“The divinity is propitiated,” said the sanctified impostor.“Your prayers have been heard, and you are favoured with the especial notice of one, in whose term of life the Maha Yug[3]is no more than a single instant, by comparison with this earth’s duration. Prepare to meet the god at midnight.”

“You mock me. Does the deity condescend to become incarnate, and reveal himself in a mortal body to his worshippers?”

“Yes: where it is his will to favour those whose homage he approves, he reveals himself to them in the likeness of his creatures, generally assuming the form of some devout priest, whose ministrations he especially approves, and thus signifies his approval. You will see him this night, under the similitude of a favourite Brahmin. He has determined to grant your supplications.”

She was astonished at this communication. The reverence in which she had been accustomed to hold the character of the priesthood—the wild solemnity of the scene around her—the dazzling light that seemed supernaturally to float over the ponderous image—the excitement under which she laboured, from her anxiety for her husband’s welfare and the issue of her appeal—the promise that her supplications had been favourably heard—all tended to throw her into such a tumult of agitation, that she became bewildered; and, under the impulse of superstitious enthusiasm, consented to meet the god at midnight.

Guileless as the mother dove, she did not dream that danger could accrue from her meeting a spiritual being who merely condescended to assume the garb of mortal flesh, in order to render himself intelligible to mortal faculties; and as, according to the impure creed in which she had been reared, gods had occasionally united themselves to mortals in an alliance of love, her heart’s purity was not shocked at the idea which the Brahmin broadly hinted, of the divinity of Somnat favouring her by such especial predilection. She was aware also that her husband, as well as herself, would look upon it as a signal mark of distinction, andfeel himself honoured at his wife’s exaltation by so eminent a token of divine preference.

The wily Brahmin, however, knew his victim too well to suppose that, notwithstanding her visionary impressions, she would fall an easy prey; and it was only whilst he could keep up the delusion under which she then laboured, that he would find her a submissive votary at the shrine of the most odious superstition which has ever degraded the sacred name of religion. In order to maintain the excitement by which she was at that moment actuated, and strengthen the impressions to which she was expected to become a prey, some of those abominable mummeries were performed, so commonly practised at the altars of Hindoo gods. A number of dancing girls were introduced, who went through various obscene antics before the idol, in which several Brahmins joined, with all the apparent enthusiasm of an absorbing devotion.

The beautiful Hindoo looked on without a blush, under the persuasion that these were sacred ministrations peculiar to the divinity of Somnat, and she came to the conclusion that such were the pleasures in which that divinity delighted to revel. After these orgies had been gone through, and the temple of religion made a scene of revolting indecency, the lamp was suddenly extinguished, and the immense edifice involved in profound darkness. The young wife was confounded. She heard the laughter of those who, like the Greek bacchantes, had been performing the grossest scenes in the very presence of their deity, and shouts of joy seemed to issue from a thousand throats. She stood mute, between astonishment and apprehension. Her awe had given way to momentary terror. She was preparing to retreat toward the portal through which she had entered, when a soft but repulsive voice caught her ear:

“Come to the embrace of the god; he awaits thee; ’tis midnight, and he is impatient to meet thee.”

Her heart palpitated; she was struck with a sudden suspicion. The voice was evidently disguised, but, to her quick ear, could not be mistaken: it was that of the Brahmin. Her brain flashed with instant conviction, as if the deity had lighted up her soulwith a positive revelation. The impulse was irresistible. The illusions of superstition vanished, and she felt herself in the meshes of the betrayer. She gasped for breath; she spoke not; she groped for a resting-place, and her arm fell upon the pedestal of the idol.

“Come,” said the voice, in a gentle whisper; “why this delay? The god is impatient, and he is not used to be slighted: where he honours, he expects obedience. Come!”

“Avaunt! deceiver,” she cried. “You have marked me for your victim. I am betrayed. Why should the divinity of Somnat assume the form of an aged and deformed Brahmin, when he might clothe himself in the fairest garb of mortal flesh? My dream is past. I am your dupe. Away, and leave me. Never will I submit to pollution by one who makes religion a pander to his odious passions. A light has broken upon me. The deity has indeed heard my supplication, and saved me from the machinations of one who will swell the ranks of the Asuras, amid the darkness of Lóhángáráká.”[4]

The Brahmin, finding himself foiled, quitted his expected victim in a fury of disappointment.

She stood alone, leaning on the image, rapt in a trance of painful abstraction. Suddenly she felt the idol totter; a noise was heard from within, like the hissing of ten thousand serpents, immediately after which fire issued from the nose and mouth of the image, and fell in thick showers around. The whole temple was illuminated, and the door instantly became visible to the worshipper. She darted forward in spite of every impediment, and at length succeeded in gaining the entrance. She felt the pure breath of heaven upon her burning brow, and rejoiced in her escape. Reaching her home at length, in a tumult of hope and anxiety, she found that her husband had gone to that land where “there is time no longer.”

FOOTNOTES:[2]This is stated in the Zein-ool-Maasir.[3]The Maha Yug, or great Divine Age, is the longest of the Hindoo astronomical periods, containing a cycle of four million three hundred and twenty thousand years.[4]The last of the thrice seven hells of the Hindoos. Lóhángáráká signifies hot iron coals.

[2]This is stated in the Zein-ool-Maasir.

[3]The Maha Yug, or great Divine Age, is the longest of the Hindoo astronomical periods, containing a cycle of four million three hundred and twenty thousand years.

[4]The last of the thrice seven hells of the Hindoos. Lóhángáráká signifies hot iron coals.

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