Forlong - Rivers of Life

250
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
corner. I suspect these shields are IOnish, as well for the upreared fiery corona of
Serpent heads. These sculptures were on a very old part of the dam of the Reservoir;
I mean may have been of any age prior to this century, for we are here talking of quite
new Sivaik workmanship; I should say they were not probably more than 200 years
old at the very outside. On the most modern part of the fine marble weir, where it is
of noble proportions in both height and width—a regiment could without much difficulty
encamp on it, I found a beautiful white marble figure of Maya, the Fecundatrix,
as Fertility, which however I neglected to sketch, because so common to the Indian eye.
It was here evidently ready for erection and dedication as a central object, and clearly so
because the lake formed a centre of fertility, both natural and religious, in a very barren
land. Vermillion and gold-leaf, judiciously applied, brought out the proportions of the
figure in fine relief, which somewhat made up for the want of touches which the Greek
knew so well to apply. This Fig. 119 is only that of the ordinary Maya on Tiger; the one
I allude to had four arms, holding all the usual creative symbols; as the lotus, disk,
sword, and serpent, and was seated on the tiger, emblem of salaciousness, and crowned
with Serpents, as in the most ancient sculptures of India, such as we see on and about
Amravati, and all such sculptures are young, in comparison with the Serpent idea.
I have not here in any way particularly selected this Hindoo marble and ordinary
masonry work, or its ornamentations. It is a fine piece of useful engineering, and is well
known all over Rajpootana. I merely mention it as furnishing very fair samples of
the active, existing faith of the people, which we may ordinarily sketch almost everywhere,
in marching over India. I will now cursorily notice the leading features of
various sculpturings to be found on the ornamental marble portions of the newest parts
of the weir; but I must skip over some too obscene for description, though possibly
not meant to be so, nor more so than the descriptions of Jupiter in quest of some goddess,
his obtaining her person, metamorphosed as a horse; Danae’s shower of gold; the
Rape of the Sabines, &c. Many parts of the indelicate sculpturings are due no doubt to
the artist’s own weaknesses. Along the running mouldings of the cornices, the most
prominent objects here are Geese—Brahma’s vehicle, or, as the Boodhist calls him, the
Henza (Hāns or Hānsa), in which form Vishnoo appeared to Brahma to remind him of
his creative duties, for the god had “rested” as creating gods may not do. Tigers
were less abundant than usual, but one, fully sculptured, stood in front of the usual
little Lingam shrine, partly excavated out of the solid rock of the hill-side, on which
one end of the massive weir rested; of course the tiger-faced “Mahā-Deva”—a conical
stone buried in the dark crypt. Tigers were also to be seen on the various Kiosk sort
of sculptures built out into the lake, down to which five flights of marble steps and
platforms conducted one. Mixed up with a due proportion of elephants, gods, or
heroes, riding crocodiles, there were also men, and women with bodies of birds from the
waist downwards. Vishnoo, but oftener Siva, was there surrounded by angels, and
women and children sat under trees, besides winged lions, with men’s heads. The Sun