One of the painted legends treated of a certain Maharajah who appears to have persecuted the early Jain seceders, much as the Roman emperor treated the early Christians, with great ferocity, finally impaling them on stakes, and thus they were painted all of a row!
The Jain sect was at first apparently regarded as a schism, and the Jains as heretics or apostates falling away from the pure Hindu worship of Siva.
One seems here, in this great Temple of Madura, to get back to the most ancient type of religion, and one which, after all, allowing for evolution in our ideas, seems the most lasting—Nature worship. The Hindus in their pantheon include and embrace everything, at least in their own universe, which is their own country, and to them, truly, “nothing is common or unclean.” Their deities incarnate themselves in all sorts of forms. Siva, according to one legend, for instance, even taking the form of a wild sow, and suckling the young of the mother which had been slain by the hunters. The second son of Siva rides upon a peacock, the representative bird of India. The Zebu bull is sacred to Siva, and in the Lingam is symbolised and revered the male and female principle of generation, the root and source of all life on the earth.
In one place in the temple, between two of the columns, was a group of the nine planets personified and placed around the sun—a golden sphere in the centre. For each of these embodied planets might be found a corresponding personality among the deities of the classical world.
Another striking thing about the Madura temple is the force of realization and expression in the figure sculpture. Life-sized figures of different gods and demons are carved in stone in front of the columns in many of the halls of the temple, the columns themselves frequently white-washed, while the figures are left in the untouched stone and look in contrast like bronze figures, their elaborate detail and undercutting emphasizing this suggestion. Indeed, the variety of character, invention, as well as the vigour and freedom, governed by a certain formalism, of some of this sculpture at its best reminds one of European gothic sculpture in the Middle Ages, not only in its symbolical and legendary aspect, but also its all embracing character and sympathy with the life of the people. The type of the Hindu mother appears, for instance, in one of the best of the figures carrying her child on her hip, just as the native women do to this day, while a suckling infant is suspended at her breast.
Mockery, if not humour, too, seems to come out here and there sometimes, as in the dancing figure of a mocking musician playing on his pipes.
A frequent subject is Siva presenting his sister in marriage to Vishnu, and there are besides a number of curious legends connected with the sculptures here, which are very various, and, of course, not unfrequently become grotesque or monstrous under the influence of the Hindu religious symbolic ideas and the Hindu inventiveness; but one feels that here is a genuine piece of ancient life, expressed in the forms of Hindu art—frank nature worship in full vigour of life, and a dominant influence in the lives of millions of people.
In the sacred tank the people were constantly bathing and washing their clothes. The water never seems to be changed and is perfectly green in colour. Our guide said it remained pure and ordered a man to show its quality by dipping his hands in and holding a small quantity in them, cupwise. The water, however, was, even in this small quantity, quite green, although a clear green. It must have been full of vegetable matter, one would think. It reminded us of what the Maharajah’s secretary had said of the Ganges water at Benares.
The colouring of the interior of the Temple in parts recalled the mural decoration of ancient Egypt in its use of simple primary colours—red, green, white, and yellow prevailing. The lotus flower, too, was constantly introduced, treated as a rosette upon the ceilings.
Some of the pillared halls were, however, left in plain stonework, or simply whitewashed. One long hall we entered looked very impressive in the dim light, a single ray from the sun penetrating, and making a spot of intense light upon the floor.