Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 27, 2025
They think of the fire-carriage and the other things that the bridge-builders have done, and when your priests thrust forward hands asking alms, they give a little unwillingly. That is the beginning, among one or two, or five or ten for I, moving among my people, know what is in their hearts." "And the end, Jester of the Gods? What shall the end be?" said Ganesh.
Later ages have converted the whole cave into a temple of Ganpati, whence the caves obtain their name of Ganesh Lena; and the once plain walls, whose very austerity reflected perhaps the life of the monks dwelling within them, have been rudely plastered, white-washed and covered with inferior representations of incidents in the lives of Devi, Krishna, Shiv and Ganpati.
There are other temples by the dozen and mosques too for the Mohammedans. If we wander round we shall see many strange sights; in one shrine is the image of the god Saturn, a silver disc, in another that of Ganesh, the elephant-god, surely the most hideous of all! Look at him! A squatting dwarf with an elephant's trunk!
On the next day, very early in the morning, I took all those stolen goods back to Kailas Babe's lodgings, wishing to hand them over in secret to the servant Ganesh. I waited outside the door, and, not finding any one, went upstairs to Kailas Babu's room.
When we recall the almost unbroken chain of caves, the Shivner, the Ganesh, the Manmoda and the Tulja, which surround Junner, we suspect that the original intention of those primeval devotees was to carve dwellings and chapels in all three hills, which thus would have surely formed a triple beam of light in honour of the great Master, whom an English missionary has characterized as "one of the grandest examples of self- denial and love to humanity which the world has ever produced."
"They will only change a little the names of their Gods. I shall lead the builders of the bridges as of old; Shiv shall be worshipped in the schools by such as doubt and despise their fellows; Ganesh shall have his mahajuns, and Bhairon the donkey-drivers, the pilgrims, and the sellers of toys. Beloved, they will do no more than change the names, and that we have seen a thousand times."
"Am I alone, then, Heavenly Ones? Shall I smooth out my flood lest unhappily I bear away their walls? Will Indra dry my springs in the hills and make me crawl humbly between their wharfs? Shall I bury me in the sand ere I offend?" "And all for the sake of a little iron bar with the fire-carriage atop. Truly, Mother Gunga is always young!" said Ganesh the Elephant.
I, looking over their shoulders by lamplight, see that the names in the books are those of men in far places for all the towns are drawn together by the fire-carriage, and the money comes and goes swiftly, and the account-books grow as fat as myself. And I, who am Ganesh of Good Luck, I bless my peoples." "They have changed the face of the land-which is my land.
And the fire-carriages bring a thousand pilgrims where but ten came in the old years? True. That is true, to-day." "But to-morrow they are dead, brother," said Ganesh. "Peace!" said the Bull, as Hanuman leaned forward again. "And to-morrow, beloved what of to-morrow?" "This only. The Gods laughed together softly. "And then, beloved," they said.
The familiar form of Ganesh, the elephant-headed God of Wisdom, looms from the shadows of a vaulted shrine; Nandi, the sacred bull, stands beneath a carven canopy, and the great memorial of a bygone faith contains the identical galaxy of gods found in the Indian temples of the present day, for the thin veil of Javanese thought is a transparency rather than a disguise, softening rather than hiding the clear-cut outlines of the original idea.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking