NOVEMBER 29th – At length, I obtained a view of this, perhaps the most renowned of all the shrines of India, ‘the city’ par eminence, more reverentia… - James Tod

I could have consumed a month in surveying the works of the princely merchant, but time pressed, and other objects of equal importance awaited me. Passing through a court, a flight of steps conducts to the rival temple, dedicated to Parswanat’h, the twenty-third and most popular of the Jineswars. This shrine was erected by the brothers Tej Pal and Bussunt Pal, likewise merchants of the Jain persuasion, who inhabited the city of Chandravati during the sway of Dharaburz, and when Bheem Deo was paramount sovereign of Western India. The design and execution of this shrine and all its accessories are on the model of the preceding, which, however, as a whole, it surpasses. It has more simple majesty, the fluted columns sustaining the munduff are loftier, and the vaulted interior is fully equal to the other in richness of sculpture, and superior to it in the execution, which is more free and in finer taste... It is impossible to give a distinct idea of the richness and variety of the bassi-relievi either of the principal dome or the minor ones which surround it. We must not, however, overlook a singular ornament pendant from the larger vault, the delineation of which defies the pen, and would tax to the utmost the pencil of the most patient artist. Although it has some analogy to the corbeille of a gothic cathedral, there is nothing in the most florid style of gothic architecture that can be compared with this in richness. Its form is cylindrical, about three feet in length, and where it drops from the ceiling, it appears like a cluster of the half-disclosed lotus, whose cups are so thin, so transparent, and so accurately wrought, that it fixes the eye in admiration….

Much disappointment has been felt in Europe at the sterility of the historic muse of Hindustan. When Sir William Jones first began to explore the vast mines of Sanskrit literature, great hopes were entertained that the history of the world would acquire considerable accessions from this source. The sanguine expectations that were then formed have not been realized; and, as it usually happens, excitement has been succeeded by apathy and indifference. It is now generally regarded as an axiom, that India possesses no national history; to which we may oppose the remark of a French Orientalist, who ingeniously asks, whence Abu-l Fazl obtained the materials for his outlines of ancient Hindu history? Mr. Wilson has, indeed, done much to obviate this prejudice, by his translation of the Raja Tarangini, or History of Kashmir, which clearly demonstrates that regular historical composition was an art not unknown in Hindustan, and affords satisfactory ground for concluding that these productions were once less rare than at present, and that further exertion may bring more relics to light. Although the labours of Colebrooke, Wilkins, Wilson, and others of our own countrymen, emulated by many learned men in France [viii] and Germany, have revealed to Europe some of the hidden lore of India; still it is not pretended that we have done much more than pass the threshold of Indian science; and we are consequently not competent to speak decisively of its extent or its character. Immense libraries, in various parts of India, are still intact, which have survived the devastations of the Islamite. The collections of Jaisalmer and Patan, for example, escaped the scrutiny of even the lynx-eyed Alau-d-din who conquered both these kingdoms, and who would have shown as little mercy to those literary treasures, as Omar displayed towards the Alexandrine library. Many other minor collections, consisting of thousands of volumes each, exist in Central and Western India, some of which are the private property of princes, and others belong to the Jain communities.

This image, which was one of the penates of a former age, and which since the destruction of the shrines of Krishna by the Islamites, had lain in the Yamuna, attached itself to the sacerdotal zone of high priest Balba, while he was performing ablutions, who, carrying it home, placed it ina niche of the temple and worshipped it and Nonanda yet receives the peculiar homage of the high priest and his family as their household divinity (Tod Vol. I 1920: 272).