Others
threw him chains made of beads like small nuts, with a naturally sweet
scent, which these idolaters wear on their necks and use to repeat
their prayers over each bead. Others threw chains of coral or yellow
amber, others fruits and flowers. Finally, with everything which is
thrown to the chief Brahman's child he wipes the idol and makes him
kiss it, and afterwards, as I have just said, returns it to the people.
This idol is called Morli Ram,1 that is to say, the God Morli, brother of the idol on the great altar.
Under
the principal entrance of the pagoda one of the ' chief Brahmans is
seated, and close to him is a large dish full of yellow pigment mixed
with water. All the poor idolaters one after the other present
themselves to him, and he anoints their foreheads with some of this
colour, which is continued down between the eyes and on to the end of
the nose, then on the arms and in front of the chest; and it is by
these marks that those who have bathed in the Ganges are distinguished.2
Those who bathe only in their houses—for they are all obliged to bathe
before eating, and even before cooking— those, I say, who have bathed
only in well-water, or in that brought from the river, are not properly
purified, and so they cannot be anointed with this colour. It may be
remarked that the idolaters, according to their castes, are anointed
with different colours ; and in the Empire of the Great Mogul, those
who are anointed with yellow belong to the most important tribe, and
are the least impure. For, when attending to the ordinary necessities
of nature, the others content themselves with carrying a pot of water
to wash themselves, while these always use a handful of sand, with
which they first rub themselves, and then bathe. So they can say their
bodies are clean, that no impurity remains, and that they may then take
their food without fear.
Adjoining this great pagoda, on the side which faces the setting sun at midsummer, there is a house which serves as
1 Muralidhara, Krishna, in the form of a flute-player, murali, ' a flute or pipe'. See an engraving in W. J. Wilkins, Hindu Mythology, 186.
a
The Tilak, or mark characteristic of the Vaishnava sect, is
perpendicular ; that of the Saivas horizontal. See drawings in
Russell, op. tit., B. 102 ; Census Report, Bengal, 1911, i. 254.
