DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.640#0073
Ix INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
The next article relates to the Hindoo temples, none of which
appear to be distinguished for the elegance of their architecture: "
they are not the work of a people sunk in barbarism; neither
will they bear any comparison with the temples of the Greeks or
Romans'. They are not constructed so as to hold a crowd of
worshippers, who are always accommodated in an area opposite
the temple. The room in which the idol is placed is considered
sufficiently spacious if it hold the officiating priest, the utensils
for worship, and the offerings.
These temples answer none of the ends of a lecture room, nor
of a Christian temple. Here the passions are never raised to
heaven by sacred music, nor by the voices of a large and devout
congregation celebrating the praises of the Deity in the strains of
sacred poetry; here no devout feelings are awakened by the voice
of prayer and confession, nor are the great truths of religion ex-
plained, or enforced upon the mind of an attentive crowd by the
eloquence of a public speaker: the daily worship at the temple is
performed by the solitary priest with all the dulness, carelessness,
and insipidity necessarily connected with a service always the^
same, repeated before an idol made of a cold stone, and in which
the priest has no interest whatever; and when the crowd do as-
semble before the temple, it is to enter upon orgies which destroy
every vestige of moral feeling, and excite to every outrage
upon virtue.
The dedication of a temple is a work of great ceremonyk, if
' We learn from the Ain Akbiiree, however, that the entire revenues
of Orissa, for twelve years, were expended on erecting a temple to the
sun.—Maurice's Indian Antiquities.
k Circumambulating a temple is an act of merit, raising the person to
a place in the heaven of the god or goddess whose temple he thus walks
round. At Benares the devout do it daily. If the circumambulator be
a learned man, he repeats the praise of the god as he is walking, and
bows to the image every time he arrives at the door of the temple* The
ignorant merely walk round, and make the bow. The right hand is
always kept towards the object circumambnlated.
The next article relates to the Hindoo temples, none of which
appear to be distinguished for the elegance of their architecture: "
they are not the work of a people sunk in barbarism; neither
will they bear any comparison with the temples of the Greeks or
Romans'. They are not constructed so as to hold a crowd of
worshippers, who are always accommodated in an area opposite
the temple. The room in which the idol is placed is considered
sufficiently spacious if it hold the officiating priest, the utensils
for worship, and the offerings.
These temples answer none of the ends of a lecture room, nor
of a Christian temple. Here the passions are never raised to
heaven by sacred music, nor by the voices of a large and devout
congregation celebrating the praises of the Deity in the strains of
sacred poetry; here no devout feelings are awakened by the voice
of prayer and confession, nor are the great truths of religion ex-
plained, or enforced upon the mind of an attentive crowd by the
eloquence of a public speaker: the daily worship at the temple is
performed by the solitary priest with all the dulness, carelessness,
and insipidity necessarily connected with a service always the^
same, repeated before an idol made of a cold stone, and in which
the priest has no interest whatever; and when the crowd do as-
semble before the temple, it is to enter upon orgies which destroy
every vestige of moral feeling, and excite to every outrage
upon virtue.
The dedication of a temple is a work of great ceremonyk, if
' We learn from the Ain Akbiiree, however, that the entire revenues
of Orissa, for twelve years, were expended on erecting a temple to the
sun.—Maurice's Indian Antiquities.
k Circumambulating a temple is an act of merit, raising the person to
a place in the heaven of the god or goddess whose temple he thus walks
round. At Benares the devout do it daily. If the circumambulator be
a learned man, he repeats the praise of the god as he is walking, and
bows to the image every time he arrives at the door of the temple* The
ignorant merely walk round, and make the bow. The right hand is
always kept towards the object circumambnlated.