Havell, Ernest B.: Benares, the sacred city: Sketches of Hindu life and religion (London, [1912])

VILLAGE SHRINES

193

ANCIENT CARVING, KHANDAWA TEMPLE

several smaller shrines. They each contain a few
pieces of old sculpture, representing one or other of
the 300,000,000 deities the Hindu pantheon is said
to contain. The Hindu peasant is as confirmed an
idolater as the Muhammadan is iconoclast. With
a profound indifference to archaeological or sectarian
distinctions he will take a fragment of sculpture, Bud-
dhist, Jain, or Hindu, headless, armless, or legless,
build a little shrine for it, give it the name which
pleases him best, and worship it as a manifestation
of his favourite divinity.

Along the four sides of the tank are broad avenues
of trees. Under them the cattle tread out the corn
and turn the slow, creaking mill which crushes the
juicy sugar-cane. Their mangers, like village altars,
are raised on mud pedestals between the trees.
Beyond the neat thatched huts an endless expanse
of ripening crops promises a plenteous harvest.

Leaving Khandawa, the pilgrims continue their
journey by the shady road through the fertile fields,
and on the second day reach Dhupchandi, a village