MADURA AND ITS PAGODA.
BY BISHOP JOHN F. HURST.
When I was buying my ticket at Tuticorin for Madura, the station agent was kind enough to say:
“Don’t you know there is cholera in Madura?”
“What, real Asiatic cholera?”
“It’s real Asiatic cholera, and nothing else,” he answered.
“I have not heard it before,” I replied. “I have only this moment landed from the steamer ‘Nerbudda,’ and have had no news of any kind. Many deaths?”
“Oh, no. Nothing compared with last year. Five thousand died during the season. Only about ten die a day just now, and we don’t consider that anything.”
I mused a moment on the mortality of ten cholera patients a day in a place of fifty thousand, and then asked: “Do you think it safe to go?”
“I can’t answer that. It all depends.”
Two facts now came to my relief. One was, that few people in India think cholera contagious. There are no separate hospitals for such cases. Cholera patients are put in the same wards with patients suffering from fever and other diseases. The other fact was, that two weeks before, when I was in Puna, there had been a cholera case in the native bazar, and yet I had a most pleasant ride through that part of the city, and had suffered no harm, and saw no alarm anywhere. The truth is, nobody thinks of cholera as any more likely to happen than any mild disease. Dr. Waugh told me only yesterday that cholera prevailed more or less in all Indian towns, but that nobody minded it. It might be next door, but it frightened no one. The only thing is to watch its beginning, and manage it, as you can, with care and caution. Another is, to take care of one’s diet. This must be said, however, that when cholera does come, and its first stage is neglected, the collapse is very sudden.
Taking all things together it did not seem much of a risk to spend my intervening day, before meeting an engagement at Bangelore, in the Mysore, in making a halt in Madura, and using my only opportunity to see the famous Pagoda there—the largest, not only in India, but in the world.
Long before reaching Madura one can see the great towers which rise above the Pagoda, and dominate not alone the city, but the whole surrounding country. In many of the Indian cities the temple is in the suburbs, and even completely alone, in the country, having been left by the drift of the population far out into other directions. But this is not the case in Madura. The Pagoda is in the very heart of the old city. The bazars lead directly toward it, and overflow into it. It is the city in miniature, with its dirt, ill odors, poverty, wealth, superstition, and infamous idolatry. All the surging tide of tradesmen drifts toward and about it. No adequate conception of an Indian temple can be formed from any European illustration of sacred places. Perhaps the Troitskoi Monastery in Russia, where many cathedrals are grouped around one central sacred place, making the whole a very Canterbury, is as near an approach to an Indian temple and its spaces as can be found anywhere west of Asia.
Madura has long been celebrated for this Pagoda. There are conflicting opinions as to its antiquity. It is probable that the place itself was regarded sacred, and was the site of a temple long before a city was built here. It is not unlikely that the temple was the first building, and that the city grew out of it, and all about it. The immense structure gives clear evidence of its own antiquity. It was built in the third century before the Christian era, by King Kula Shekhara. It is evidently a case where the city has sprung into life from religious associations, and become the capital of a large territory. Some parts of the Pagoda are modern, and were built by Nurmala Nark, in the former half of the seventeenth century, but one can easily distinguish the newer from the older. The effect, throughout, is one of great and undisturbed antiquity.
The Pagoda space is an immense parallelogram, extending 744 feet from east to west, and 847 feet from north to south. This area is enclosed by a light wall, and is flanked, at various points, by nine colossal towers. These towers are of peculiar structure, all after the same model, and so disposed toward each other as to form a symmetrical combination. Each constitutes a kind of gateway, for entrance from different sides of the wall. As you enter you find yourself passing through a great open corridor. The gopura is shaped like a tent, and on every side is ornamented with carvings. These represent the fabulous doings of the god Shiva and his wife, Minakshi, and ascend in lessening rows, or stories, until the apex is reached, which is sharp and curved, and reminds one of the general form of an old Roman gallery. The colors of these gopuras are very rich, and, in the case of several, shine like fine tiling, or even gay enamel. The blue is especially rich, and is fairly dazzling in the bright sunlight. While Shiva is the god to whom the temple is supposed to have been dedicated, the more frequent representations of his wife Minakshi prove her to be the favorite of the people.