P a g o d a .
S p l e n d i©
C h o u l t r y -.
queftion, he made a folemn oath before the affembly o f Brahmins,
that he derived really and truly his religion from the god
Brahma. This impofture fucceeded for a great length of time,
till in the year 1744, Pope BenediSl XI. detefting the fraud of
thefe Jefuit-Brahmins, declared their whole proceedings to be
impious and unlawful.
T he pagoda at Madura is among the moft fuperb in all
India; I faw numbers o f drawings made on the fpot by Lieut:
Paterfon, with all the wild fculptures iketched with great accuracy.
The figures were colofial, men, tigers, and elephants.
The tigers are as big as life, all cut on fingle ftones, fome of
which were not lefs than thirty-five feet long. How muft our
rude Druidical temple o f Stone Hinge fink below this work; fu-
perior in works of elegant art, and much more fa in the waft
fize o f the ftones, lifted up to their places, in days, as antient
perhaps, as thofe in which the Britons reared a boafted pile.
Mr. Blackadir, in the Archaelogia, vol. x. p. 449, gives a curious
account of this pagoda, and of the attendant Choultry, or
building for the overflow of devotees. It is well known that in
other places choultries are the fame as Caravan/eras erefted on
the fides of roads for the reception of travellers. It was built
by Primal Naik, king of Madura. It was begun in 1623, was
twenty-two years in building, and coft a million fterling. It has
four rows of pillars, each of a fingle ftone twenty feet high.
The roof confifts of long ftones reaching from capital to capital;
every capital is carved differently with- iome legendary tale.
The deity o f the temple is Choca Lingam, not prefented in an
obicene form, but in that of a block, with the outline of a human