Our exploration of Tanjore commenced by driving to the Old Fort within which stands the great Hindu Temple dedicated to Siva. The great gateway is approached by a bridge over a moat, then dry, which surrounds the Fort. The outer gate is plastered and is crowned by a row of figures of deities in niches which are brightly coloured. The great gateway is of yellow sandstone and is richly carved—a mass of figures and detail. The image of the god Siva and his various incarnations constantly appears. Various legends connected with these are painted on the walls of the court at the back of an arcade, and are exceedingly curious.
The great Nandi, or sacred Bull of Siva, a colossal image of a recumbent Bull, richly ornamented with chains and bells around his neck, is seen on a pedestal approached by steps in the centre of the court, under a pillared and decorated canopy. When we saw it first a magnificent peacock had perched himself upon the head of the bull, his tail drooping over its neck. The bull was carved out of a fine black stone, really syenite, but much darkened by libations of oil with which the image is constantly anointed. It has all the character of the type of zebu in this district. We saw its living prototype in a street of Tanjore—a splendid black bull (short-horned) lying down with its yoke companion, a white one, equally noble looking.
The pillared front of the small temple close by was richly coloured, and on a sort of frieze was a series of portraits of the reigning family of Maharajahs.
The Temple guide spoke a little English, but occasionally would stop for want of words, but we generally gathered his meaning, and he seemed unusually intelligent.
Ganesha, the elephant god (of generation) frequently appeared among the others, Siva and Parvati being the chief. One of the scenes painted on the wall of the arcade, already spoken of, represented the wedding of Siva and Parvati, who stood, hand in hand, with a tree in the middle—like Adam and Eve. Among the guests at this wedding were represented two giants, one whose appetite seemed to know no limit, while the thirst of the other was unquenchable. The first was shown devouring all kinds of food, and to express the drinking capacity of the other a stream of water full of fish was flowing into the mouth of the other. These were very primitive paintings, but expressive. The figures were drawn in black outline and filled in with flat tints. At the gate of the Temple there were drawings on the white-washed wall in thick outline in Indian red, in quite a different style and no doubt of a much later date. A large number of Lingams were shown in rows placed together in one corner of the court, and there were many Lingam shrines in the arcade besides. Here and there was colouring on the carved figures, but, as a rule, the elaborately carved pagodas were left in yellow sandstone, which had blackened where exposed to the weather, and it may have been that colour had been worn off.
The later temple (dating from about the fifteenth century) had remarkably delicate carving on its lower courses, the edges being frequently pierced. At the steps of the entrance an elephant, carved on each side, formed the balustrade, each having two trunks, one curling inwards and holding a man in its coil, and the second extended and terminating in a volute at the end of the steps on each side.
There was a noticeable point, as giving further evidence of primitive wooden construction, in the carved detail under the eaves of the great temple where there was a sort of intersected lattice work faithfully rendered in stone. It recalled the screens of bamboo and matting, commonly used in this district, added on to the edges of the tiled roofs in front of the huts and bungalows as extra shields from the sun, and this carved stone lattice work may have been derived from the wood work and the cane and wicker structure of the primitive buildings which preceded the use of stone.
In the court of the great temple, in a shed (roofed with corrugated iron I regret to say), we saw the cars used for the procession through the city, on the occasion of the great annual festival in March, which appears to be similar to the Juggernaut. The high pyramidal canopied roof, supported on columns, was carved like the pagoda of a temple, which, in fact, it represented. The image of the god being placed within. The car would be drawn by a pair of oxen.
We saw afterwards a religious procession of the kind passing down the principal street. Two men carried a banner in front, a piece of red cloth suspended between two poles. After them came a band playing tom-toms and hautboys, such as we heard at Benares. Then came the car drawn by two zebus, with its high pagoda, accompanied by priests in white robes, with long hair and marks on their foreheads.
It struck me as remarkable how closely the dress of the native men here resembles that of the people of ancient Egypt as pictured on the monuments. Indeed, the Hindu pantheon itself suggests a certain kinship to the symbolic Egyptian religion, embracing, as it appears to do, the deification of all natural forces and types of animals and birds. The Hindus have their elephant god, their monkey god, and their parrot god, for instance, each figured with the animal’s head but otherwise human, just as the Egyptians imaged their hawk-headed, cat-headed, and other deities. The ox of Osiris, too, seems to present a parallel to the sacred bull of Siva.