263. Temple at Kantonuggur. (From a Photograph.)
There is another and more ornate temple, in the same style, at Gopal Gunge,[472] in the same district, but in infinitely worse taste; and one known as the Black Pagoda, at Calcutta, and many others all through Lower Bengal; but hardly any so well worthy of illustration as this one at Kantonuggur.
Amritsur.
264. The Golden Temple in the Holy Tank at Amritsur.
One other example may serve for the present to complete what we have at present to say regarding the temples of modern India. This time, however, it is no longer an idol-shrine, but a monotheistic place of prayer, and differs, consequently, most essentially from those we have been describing. The religion of the Sîkhs appears to have been a protest alike against the gross idolatry of the Hindus and the inflexible monotheism of the Moslems. It does not, however, seem that temples or gorgeous ceremonial formed any part of the religious system propounded by its founders. Reading the ‘Granth’ and prayer are what were insisted upon, but even then not necessarily in public. We, in consequence, know nothing of their temples, if they have any; but Runjeet Singh was too emulous of the wealth of his Hindu and Moslem subjects in this respect not to desire to rival their magnificence, and consequently we have the Golden Temple in the Holy Tank at Amritsur—as splendid an example of its class as can be found in India, though neither its outline nor its details can be commended ([Woodcut No. 264]). It is useful, however, as exemplifying one of the forms which Indian temple-architecture assumed in the 19th century, and where, for the present, we must leave it. The Jains and Hindus may yet do great things in it, if they can escape the influence of European imitation; but now that the sovereignty has passed from the Sîkhs we cannot expect their priests or people to indulge in a magnificence their religion does not countenance or encourage.