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Perhaps the most notable of the buildings are an observatory, built by a famous Rajput prince, Jae Singh, and a massy and extensive structure, with its buttresses and high walls looking as if recently erected, which was built in the last half of the eighteenth century by Cheit-Singh, the Rajah of Benares at that time, who was deposed by Warren Hastings on account of his refusal to comply with the demands of the British Government.
Higher up, approaching the plateau where were the ruins of a thousand gorgeous shrines, both sides of the pathway were lined by mendicants who sat cross-legged, in front of them a little mat for the receipt of alms cowries, pice, silver; the mendicants muttering incessantly "Jae, Jae, Omkar!"
Every now and then one of a party will raise the shout "Mahadeo jee kee jae!" It has occurred to me that this is done with peculiar force when Europeans are within hearing. You speedily find yourself at the principal temple of Benares the temple of Bisheshwar, sacred to Shiva under this name, which means Lord of All.
Loud cries of "Jae, Jae, Omkar!" rose in a chorus from a hundred swelling throats. At a turning around a huge banyan tree they saw the flickering flames of torches, and Barlow knew that plodding in front was a large body of pilgrims.
This looked like a fairly easy game, and before long we were marking the quantities in the first line of the Aeneid, as other school-children had done ever since the time of St. Augustine: Arma vi|rumque ca|no Tro|jae qui | primus ab|oris. Or perhaps it was Horace's Maece|nas, atavis || edite reg|ibus.
From the amphitheatre of the enclosing hills thirty thousand voices rose in one thundering chorus of "Jae, jae, Omkar!" and, "To Omkar the Kurban!" Many pressed forward, mad fanaticism in their eyes, and held out at arm's length toward the girl bracelets and ornaments to be touched by her fingers as a beneficence.
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