Identifier: winterindia00scid (find matches)
Title: Winter India
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Scidmore, Eliza Ruhamah, 1856-1928
Subjects: India -- Description and travel
Publisher: New York : The Century Co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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as carved sandstone rail, the oldest sculp-tured monument in India, has been carefully re-placed, as far as possible, and in long stretchesshows us that curious carpenters arrangement ofmortised posts and rails and carved rosette orna-ments over each joint and cross-piece. The greatpillars and cross-beams of the toran gateway, precur-sor of the Chinese pailow and the Japanese torii,have been raised before the entrance, but too muchof it is missing to tell whether it was as splendidand monumental as the toran of Sanchi which Asokalater began erecting. Twenty posts and many ro-settes of the carved rail had been built into the wallsand courts of the mahants college, and no amountof persuasion could induce the heathens to restorethem to the temple court. All about the Bo-tree, the Diamond Throne, theCloister, and the temple doorway, the stones weredaubed with gold-leaf and ocher. The Brahmanguide was just able to tell that these yellow smearswere the offerings of pious Burmese, but to any
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THE SACRED BO-TREE 145 further qiiostions concerning the Burmese and theirintermittent gilding the Bralmian returned a dumbstare. He led us up into the temple, through anarchway in a wall twenty feet thick, to a squarewhitewashed cell, and up to a second chilly, whitevault where the light fell through a triangular eastwindow full upon the image on the carved basaltaltar. It was a tawdry, gilded image, more asleepthan serenely meditating, with a Hindu caste-markon its brow—Buddhas mother! said the Brah-man, For further shock and disillusionment, it wasonly necessary to note that the image was attiredin a red merino petticoat and a tinsel-bordered cape—to keep the image warm, said the Brahman,winding his grimy sheet more closely around himin that chill sanctuary. There was a litter of foodand flower, incense and candle offerings on the altarin true Burmese fashion, scores of Tibetan flags andstreamers in the corners of the room, while old Bud-dhist bas-reliefs built into the wall we

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