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From this stirring scene you have only a few steps to go to find yourself in the large mosque built by the Emperor Aurungzeb on the site of the old temple of Bisheshwar, which was thrown down to give place to it. The contrast is very striking.
In Roman Catholic worship there is much which, as Protestants ruled by the Bible, we rightly condemn; but in the gorgeous vestments of its priests, in the magnificence of many of the places in which they minister, in the grand strains of their music and in their processions, there is much to impress the senses and awe the mind; but in the worship carried on in the temple of Bisheshwar it is difficult to find a redeeming quality.
"Outside the enclosure is a large collection of deities, raised upon a platform, called by the natives 'The Court of Mahadeo." Though the gods in the Hindu books are represented as continually quarrelling with each other, and their devotees take up their quarrels, not only at the temple of Bisheshwar, but throughout the city which is regarded as Shiva's own, they are seen side by side, as in perfect amity, and there is not a single god who does not secure the special devotion of some worshippers.
A considerable number are cooks in the houses of the wealthy, as from their hand all can eat, while they in many cases would consider it an intolerable insult to be asked to eat with their masters. Not a few are beggars. There are places in Benares to which people resort almost as much as to the temple of Bisheshwar.
It is officially stated they have 272 mosques, of which that of Aurungzeb, with its lofty minarets, is the largest. Hindus must have looked with horror on the sacrilegious deed by which this mosque was erected on the site of the demolished temple of Bisheshwar; but the power of the bigot emperor was so great that they could do nothing more than invocate curses on his head.
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.
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